and 1619.
[256] Gentleman, _op. cit._, 36; Swinden, _History of Great Yarmouth_,
465; _State Papers, Dom._, xlvii. 112, 114.
[257] Meynert Semeyns, _Een corte beschryvinge over de
Haring-visscherye in Hollandt_.
[258] Keymer, _Observations on Dutch Fishing_; Monson, _Naval
Tracts_, in Churchill’s _Collection_, iii. 467; H. Robinson, _Briefe
Considerations concerning the Advancement of Trade_, p. 50; _England’s
Great Interest by encouraging the setting up of the Royal Fishery_,
&c., &c.
[259] A Demonstration of the Hollanders increase in Shipping and our
Decay herein. _State Papers, Dom._, xlvii. 112.
[260] _The Trades Increase._ Keymer, _Observations on Dutch Fishing,
&c. Observations touching Trade, &c._, Raleigh’s _Works_, viii. 374.
_State Papers, Dom._, xlviii. 114.
[261] _A Discourse of the Invention of Ships. Works_, viii. 325.
[262] In one of the most elaborate and detailed of the proposals for
the building of busses, the daily allowance of beer for each man was to
be a gallon, as in the king’s ships: the buss was to go to sea with 56
herring barrels full of beer. E. S.--_Britaines Bvsse, or a Computation
as well of the Charge of a Bvsse or Herring fishing ship as also of the
Gain and Profit thereby._ London, 1615.
[263] Keymer, _Observations on Dutch Fishing_. The industrious
Hollander was held up as an example to the English. “If any be so
weak,” said one writer, “to think this mechanical fisher trade not
feasible to the English people, to him I may say with Solomon, Go to
the Pismire! Look upon the Dutch! Thou Sluggard! learn of them! They
do it daily in the sight of all men at our own doors, upon our own
coasts.” “Shall we,” said another, “neglect so great blessings? O
slothful England, and careless Countrymen! Look but on these fellows,
that we call the plump Hollanders; behold their diligence in fishing
and our own careless negligence.”
[264] _State Papers, Dom._, James I., lxxi. 89. Malynes, who, as
already suggested in the note on page 128, may have been the author
of Cope’s tract, said exactly the same thing in 1622--that there had
been a continual agitation for over thirty years to make busses and
fisher-boats. _The Maintenance of Free Trade_, 42.
[265] J. Bowssar to Sir Julius Cæsar, 14th October 1607, _Brit. Mus.
Lansdowne MSS._, 142, fol. 373.
[266] A Project for to restore unto the King’s Majestie his Dueties of
Fishing by re-establishing ye Auncient Manner of fishing for herringe,
Coad, and Ling, for maintenaunce of Navigation and Marryners with
greatt increase of Traffique, 22nd April 1609, _Brit. Mus. Lansdowne
MSS._, 142, fol. 371. _State Papers, Dom._, xlviii. 95.
[267] Treaty of Antwerp, 30 March/9 April 1609.
[268] A rubric in the copy at the Record Office says, “By Proclamation
first, most convenient to all the world.”
[269] _State Papers, Dom._, xlviii. 94. It is written on parchment and
imperfect, and endorsed, “Mr Rainsford’s Answeares.”
[270] See p. 64.
[271] To the King’s Most excellent Majestie: A Declaration of the
Fishing of Herring, Codd, and Ling, and how greatly the favour or
disfavour of Your Royal Majesty concerneth the Hollanders. _State
Papers, Dom._, xxxii. 32. A Declaration how much the Favour or
Disfavour of Your Royal Majestie doth concern the Prosperity or
Adversitie of the Hollanders: and what inconvenience may ensue, and how
to praevent the same to the honour and safety of your Majesty and the
tranquillitie of the Netherlanders. _Ibid._, xlv. 23.
[272] A Demonstration of the Hollanders Increase in Shipping and our
Decay herein. _Ibid._, xlvii. 112. Particulars of the Lawes observed by
other Nations touching fishing, and the Advantages that would accrue
from establishing an English Fishing fleet. _Ibid._, 114.
[273] _Records of the Convention of the Royal Burghs of Scotland_, ii.
203, July 2, 1605.
[274] _State Papers, Dom._, xxxii. 31.
[275] _State Papers, Dom._, xlv. 22. The petition was signed by
fishermen of Yarmouth, Dover, Hastings, Rye, Hythe, and Folkestone. It
is said in the petition that they had previously craved both the king
and the Council for redress, without avail.
[276] The author of _Britaines Buss_ had heard, but did not believe,
stories of the “very foul and insolent dealing of their bussmen with
our poor weak fishermen upon our coasts.” Tobias Gentleman, who admired
the Dutch for their industry, said they scorned us only “for being so
negligent of our profit, and careless of our fishing; and they do daily
flout us that be the poor fishermen of England, to our faces at sea,
calling to us and saying, ‘Ya English, ya zall, or oud scoue dragien,’
which in English is this: ‘You English, we will make you glad for to
wear our old shoes.’” _Englands Way to Win Wealth_, p. 44.
[277] _Brit. Mus. Lansdowne MSS._, 142, fol. 375. A copy of the letter
of the Lords of the Council, in the handwriting of Sir Julius Cæsar,
is as follows: After our very hearty recommendations. Whereas his
Majesty hath of late been moved vpon many consyderations arising from
the complayntes of his subiects, to take some course of restraynt of
many inconveniences depending vpon the excesse of libertie, w^{ch} is
taken by the subiectes of forraigne princes and states to fish vppon
his coast; By which, not onlie his owne ffishermen receive wrong in
their fishing, but the verie Coast-Townes themselves are much decayed
for lack of meanes to sett their people on work. To w^{ch} end hee had
resolved to set forth a proclamation to th’effect of that w^{ch} is
hereinclosed:
Fforasmuch as vppon perusall of some Treaties from King Henry 7_{ths}
tyme till this daye betweene the Crowne of England and the house of
Burgundy, we fynde certeyne clauses, by which there maye arise some
question how farre any such Prohibition maye concurre with the practice
of the same for so much as shall concerne the subiects of that Estate;
Of w^{ch} particulars it is necessary that some deliberation were
taken, beefore his Ma^{tie} proceeded to a generall execution of the
same: We have thought good to requyre yow ioyntly and severally to
peruse all those Treaties, and to consyder of them, and all other
thinges, by w^{ch} the lawfullnes or vnlawfulnes maye appeare of this
proceeding; Which being don wee shall expect some report from you for
his Ma^{ties} better satisfaction.
Wherein wee doubt not but yow will proceede w^{th} all convenient
expedition. And so will bid yow hartelie farewell.
Ffrome the Court at Whitehall
first of Ffebruarie, 1606.
Mr Secretary Herbert.
Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer
Sr. Daniel Dun.
Sr. Thomas Crompton.
Sr. Christopher Perkins.
Yo^r Verie loving friendes,
Subscribed by the
1. L. Chancellor.
2. L. Treasour.
3. L. Admirall.
4. The Earle of Worcester.
5. The Earle of Salisbury.
6. The Earle of Marr.
7. The L. Stanhop.
This copy is dated 1st February 1606, and the copy of the report of
the Committee is also dated 1606, which would imply that the matter
had been before the Privy Council in that year. It appears, however,
from other evidence that Sir Julius Cæsar made a mistake in dating the
copies.
[278] _Brit. Mus. Lansdowne MSS._, 142, fol. 377. In Sir Julius Cæsar’s
handwriting, and endorsed, “A copy of a letter from Mr Secretary
Herbert, myself, and others to the L^{ds} of the King’s P. Councell,
touching the prohibition of strangers fishing on the coasts of
England,” &c. This important paper reads as follow: Our humble duties
dewe to y^r good LL^{ps}. We have according to y^r commandement,
considered of the liberty w^{ch} is taken by the Subiectes of forreine
Princes and States to fish vppon the kings Ma^{ties} coasts by w^{ch}
not onely the English fishermen receive wrong in their fishing but
the very coast townes themselves are much decayed for want of meanes
to set their people on work; and we have considered likewise of the
proclamation for the restraint of those many inconveniences depending
vppon the excesse of such strangers fishing: We haue also pervsed the
treaties frõ Henry the 7th time till this day betweene the Crowne of
England and the House of Burgundy, and we have considered of them, and
of all other thinges by w^{ch} (as wee conceave) the lawfulness or
vnlawfulness may appeare of this proceeding. And are of opinion, that
the K^s Ma^{ty} may w^{thout} breach of any treatyie nowe in force,
or of the lawe, vppon the reasons specified in the proclamation sent
vnto vs, restreine all strangers frõ fishing vppon his coasts w^{thout}
license, in such moderation and after such convenient notice given
thereof by publik proclamation, as his Ma^{ty} shall think fit.
And so we most humbly take our leaves. 14 febr. 1606.
Yo^r L^{dships} humbly at commandment,
J. Herbert. Jul. Cæsar. Daniel Dun. Christoph. Parkins. Tho. Crompton.
From the erasures and corrections (see Fig. 6) there seems little doubt
that the paper is the original draft.
[279] _Brit. Mus. Lansdowne MSS._, 142, fol. 379. In Cæsar’s
handwriting.
[280] See Appendix F.
[281] Perhaps an oblique reference to _Mare Liberum_.
[282] _State Papers, Dom._, xlv. 24. _Proc. Coll._, No. 11.
[283] Salisbury to Cornwallis, 8th June 1609. Winwood’s _Memorials of
Affairs of State in the Reigns of Q. Elizabeth and K. James I._, iii.
49.
[284] Muller, _Mare Clausum_, _Bijdrage tot de Geschiedenis der
Rivaliteit van Engeland en Nederland in de Zeventiende Eeuw_, p. 52.
Bosgoed, _Bib. Pisc._, 347. Resolutiën ... van Vergaderinge van de
Heeren Staten van Hollandt ende West-Vrieslandt, 2/12 June 1609. “Ter
Generaliteyt’s lands recht voorstaan ter saake van het Engelsch placaat
op het visschen op de kusten en zeeën van Groot Brittannien en Yrland.”
[285] “Ende oic Sijne authoriteyt eñ macht die hy in die See heeft
voir de werelt manifest te maecken.”
[286] Sir George Carew to Salisbury, 20th June 1609. Acknowledges
his lordship’s letter, “according the request made by the ffr. Amb^r
for one year’s Respite longer for the ffishers of this nation,” and
expressing his pleasure that other considerations of state so fell out
as to give his Majesty cause to grant them that favour, “for it is like
to increase the amity of the two crowns.”
[287] Caron to the States-General, 13/23 July 1609. _Brit. Mus. Add.
MSS._, 17, 677.
[288] Winwood to Salisbury, 6th September 1609. _Memorials_, iii. 64.
[289] The assize-herring was thus described by Skene, in _De Verborum
Significatione_, annexed to the laws of Scotland, printed in 1597.
“Assisa Halecum. The assise herring signifies ane certain measure and
quantity of herring, quilk perteinis to the king as ane part of his
custumes and annexed propriety, _Jac._ 6, p. 15, c. 237, for it is
manifest that Hee shuld have of everie Boat that passis to the drave,
and slayis herring, ane thousand herring of ilk tak that halds, viz. of
Lambmes tak, of the Winter tak, and the Lentrone tak”--that is, of the
summer, winter, and spring fishings. The assize-herrings appear to have
been originally a contribution to the king’s kitchen. In 1526 James V.
granted assize-herrings to Stuart of Ardgowane (_Origines Parochiales
Scotiæ_, ii. 83). In 1593, in an Act of the Parliament of Scotland,
entitled “Annexatioun of the Propertie of the Croun that wes nocht
annext of befoir,” the assize-herrings were included (Jac. VI., 1593,
c. 32. _Acta_, iv. 28), and an Act of 1597, entitled “Assysis hering
may nocht be disponit,” ordained that no infeftment or alienation in
few ferm or otherwise, and all rentals and dispositions whatsoever,
past or to come, were to be null and void, because they pertained to
the king as part of his customs and annexed property (_Acta_, iv. 131).
Later the assize-herring was commuted into a money payment. An Act
of Charles I. in 1641 (cap. 117), entitled “Act anent the Excise of
Herring,” on the ground that the collection of the herrings was “very
hard and difficult,” commuted the thousand herrings in the Firth of
Lothian into a money payment of £6 Scots. In the eighteenth century,
when it had been for the most part granted to individuals, or farmed,
it took the form of a tax ranging from £4 Scots to £10 Scots per boat
or per net, and was felt as a grievous burden. In the Firth of Forth
each boat that was “size-worthy” (viz., that caught 3000 herrings
during the whole season) had to pay ten shillings as “size-duty.” On
the west coast it amounted to £10 Scots, or sixteen shillings and
eightpence sterling, whether herrings were caught or not. With regard
to the gross value of the tax, those of the great Dunbar fishings were
leased in 1614 for five years for £1000 Scots, and a yearly rent of
2000 merks (_Reg. Privy Council Scot._, x. 282). In 1613 the value of
the “duty of the tack of the assize-herrings,” amounting to fourteen
lasts, which the Earl of Argyle rendered for Lochfyne, was estimated to
be about £36 or £38 sterling (_Melrose Papers_, i. 124). In 1598 the
assize-herring from the “east seas” was estimated to amount to 1120
dry “killing” (cod), which shows it was sometimes paid in other fish;
in 1656-57 it was equal to £130 sterling (Chalmers, _Caledonia_, ii.
497); in 1629 Captain Mason claimed no less than £12,489, 7s. sterling
as the value, with interest, of the assize-herrings of the Hebrides and
North Isles granted to him by James for the years 1610-11, and not paid
(_State Papers, Dom._, cliv. 13).
[290] Arguments for Collecting the Assyze herring from all Strangers
fishing in the North Seas of Scotland, and Answers to some objections
proponet be Sir Noel Caron. _State Papers, Dom._, xxxii. 31.
[291] Winwood, _Memorials_, iii. 105, 135, 146, 162. Muller, _op.
cit._, 56.
[292] _State Papers, Dom._, xlvii. 111. “2. For that it is by the Lawe
of nacions, no prince can Challenge further into the Sea then he can
Com̃and w^{th} a Cannon except Gulfes w^{thin} their Land from one
point to an other. 3. For that the boundlesse and rowlinge Seas are as
Com̃on to all people as the ayre w_{ch} no prince can prohibite.” The
paper is endorsed “Reasons vsed by the Hollanders for the Continuance
of Fishing Contrarie to the proclamation made in May 1609 forbidding of
strangers to fish,” and there is a note, apparently in Cæsar’s writing,
saying, “This note was sent by Emanuell Demetrius who was present att
the discourse.” It is misdated “Aug. 1609.” The endorsements appear
to have been made after 1612, because at the end it is said, “It was
answered by the _late_ Lord Treasr. Salisburie att a hearing,” &c. A
list is given of those present at the conference--viz., the Earls of
Salisbury, Northampton, Nottingham, Suffolk, Shrewsbury, and Worcester,
Mr Secretary Herbert and Sir Julius Cæsar, the “Standers by” being Sir
T. Edmondes, Sir Daniel Dunn, Sir Christopher Perkins, Sir William
Wade, and Mr Levinus Emanuell Demetrius,--probably the Levinus Muncke
of the Dutch and other records. It is to be noted that the argument
as to the limitation of the territorial sea by the range of guns was
not contained in the instructions to the Dutch, as printed by Aitzema
(_Saken van Staet en Oorlogh_, ii. 406) and Vreede (_Vrijheid van
Haringvaart_, 6; compare Muller, _Mare Clausum_, 58, 91), and is not
referred to by them in their Journal, where, however, they say they
put forward “other reasons” than those they recite (Muller, _Mare
Clausum_, 59). Van Meteren, whose work was published in 1614 (_Historie
der Nederlandscher ende haerder Naburen Oorlogen, &c._, fol. 650),
reports, however, that there was a great dispute as to how far a
country’s limit might extend into the open sea, and the brief note
of Levinus seems to be the only record of it. (“Sy seyden mede, dat
het een groote dispute ware, hoeverre elcx Laudts Custen ofte Limiten
inde groote wijde Zee Oceane mochte strecken.”) The document is of
interest not only from the clear enunciation of the doctrine at so
early a period, but because there are grounds for thinking that the
idea may have originated in the fertile brain of Grotius. Competent
Dutch authorities believe that Grotius either himself drew up the
instructions dealing with the fishery question or was consulted in
their preparation; and the fact that the argument is not contained in
the official instructions scarcely weakens the supposition. It was of
so drastic and novel a character to be urged against the pretensions of
King James that the Dutch, anxious to conciliate him, may have followed
a practice not uncommon in diplomacy, and kept it in the background
only to be made use of if a suitable occasion arose. It is, moreover,
known that Grotius had a close personal relationship with Elias van
Oldenbarnevelt, the envoy to whom the fishery negotiations were
specially entrusted.
[293] Vreede, _Vrijheid van Haringvaart en Visscherij_. _Nota, in den
Jare 1610, door de Nederlandsche Gezanten aan de Engelsche Regering
ingediend (Bijdragen voor Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde,
Derde Deel._ Arnhem, 1842). Muller, _op. cit._, 57; _State Papers,
Dom._, xlvii. 111; _Brit. Mus. Lansdowne MSS._, 142, fol. 362. Vreede
thinks it probable that the instructions were drawn up by Grotius;
Muller believes that he was at all events consulted on the matter.
[294] _State Papers, Dom._, xlvii. 111. Vreede, _op. cit._ Muller,
_op. cit. Brit. Mus. Lansdowne MSS._, 142, fol. 362. “Answers for
prohibiting of strangers fishing upon the English coastes without the
King’s license, 5th May 1610”--in the writing of Sir Julius Cæsar.
[295] “Niet door sollicitatiën van eenige courtisanen ofte hovelingen.”
[296] The Lords of the Council to Winwood, _Memorials_, iii. 166.
[297] _State Papers, Dom._, xlviii. 92.
[298] Sir Walter Cope to the king, _State Papers, Dom._, lxxi. 89. See
note, p. 128.
[299] _The Maintenance of Free Trade_, 42 (1622). He mentions the
reasons given by the powerful companies for their action, but it was
caused by their fears for their monopolies.
[300] _State Papers, Dom._, lxxvii. 79. The Earl of Northampton to Sir
Thomas Lake, 4th July 1613. _Ibid._, lxxiv. 23. The queen, who was
fond of the banquet and the masque, was often in financial straits.
Chamberlain wrote to Winwood in 1609 that she had been melancholy about
her jointure, and that £3000 a-year had been added to it out of the
customs, with a gift of £20,000 to pay her debts. _Memorials_, iii. 117.
[301] Gentleman, _Englands Way to Win Wealth, &c._; E. S., _Britaines
Buss; The Trades Increase_.
[302] In 1609 Sir Nicholas Hales told the king that he had been
informed “the Hollanders were petitioners to the Queen to grant them a
term of years in the seas for the fishing of herring, cod, and ling.”
_State Papers, Dom._, xlv. 23.
[303] Wotton to Sec. Winwood, Hague, 20th March 1614.
[304] Archbishop Abbot and Lord Chancellor Ellesmere to Thomas Wilson,
24th August 1614. _State Papers, Dom._, lxxvii. 80. It is endorsed,
“The letter to me, 24th Aug. 1614, sending for me from Harford and
for the transcribing an abstract of all things out of my papers which
might concern his Majesty’s jurisdiction on the sea, which I did
and delivered it to Mr Attorney-General, Sir Francis Bacon, by the
commandment of the Lord Chancellor and the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
[305] Caron to States-General, 27 Aug./6 Sept. 1614. _Brit. Mus. Add.
MSS._, 17, 677, H.
[306] Muller, _op. cit._, 91, 92.
[307] 26th September 1614.
[308] _Records of the Convention of the Royal Burghs of Scotland_, ii.
455. Anstruther Easter, one of the Fife villages, asked that the costs
(£400 Scots) should be reimbursed to them for obtaining the decree
against Mason “for exacting of thame certane excyse hering and fishes
at the fishing in Orknay and Zetland.”
[309] _State Papers and Correspondence of Thomas, Earl of Melros_, i.
130.
[310] _Reg. Privy Council Scot._, x. 231. _Rec. Convent. Roy. Burghs
Scot._, ii. 540.
[311] The Lords of the Council to the king, 17th May 1614. _Melrose
Papers_, i. 130. “It wes fundin,” wrote the Lords, “by vniforme
voices and consent, without ony kynd of contradictioun, that the
assise dewytie aucht onlie to be payit for the hering brought freshe
and greene to land, and that the hering whilkis ar maid, saltit, and
barrellit vpoun the sea, and maid reddye for the transporte, hes nevir
bene in vse to pay ony dewytie.”
[312] _Loc. cit._ The “patent” was the treaty of 1594. See p. 81.
It may be mentioned that Mason, in his petition to Charles I. (see
p. 153 _note_), stated that in 1611 he collected “some part” of the
assize-herrings, but that upon the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth
(February 1613) “the States ambassador made suit to the king for the
remission of the said assize-herrings due by their nation, which
was granted.” We have discovered no other evidence of this. Loose
statements were often made on the subject by English writers and
certain foreign authors, as Rapin (_Hist, d’Anglet._, vii. 58), and
Wagenaar (_Vaderl. Hist._, ix. 318) following him, that the Dutch
agreed to pay an annual sum for liberty to fish on the British coasts.
The error was elaborated by others, as by Lediard in his great work
(_Naval History of England_, i. 420), who says: “In the year 1608
(_sic_) King James published a proclamation prohibiting all foreign
nations to fish on the coast of Great Britain. This prohibition, though
general, was designed against the Dutch; and it occasioned the Treaty
the year following whereby they engaged to pay an annual sum for leave
to fish--an evident acknowledgment of the English Dominion of the Seas.”
[313] _Rec. Conv. Roy. Burghs Scot._, ii. 323, 350, 354, 374.
[314] Winwood to Carleton, 14/24 September 1616. _Letters from and to
Sir Dudley Carleton, Knt., during his Embassy in Holland; from January
1615/6 to December 1620_, p. 52.
[315] Caron to the States-General, 25 Aug./4 Sept. 1616. _Brit. Mus.
Add. MSS._, 17,677, J, fol. 152. In an account of the oppressions of
Lord Robert Stewart in the Orkneys and Shetlands in the sixteenth
century, it is stated that that nobleman laid heavy tolls upon the
Dutch fishermen and the Norwegian traders. In 1575 the inhabitants
complained that he compelled “the dogger boats and other fishers of
this realm to pay to him great toll and taxis bye auld use and wont,
to wit, ilk boat ane angel noble, ane hundreth fish, and twa bolls
salt” (_Oppressions of the Sixteenth Century in the Islands of Orkney
and Zetland_, xlviii. 4). It appears from a complaint of merchants of
Bremen, in 1614, that it had been a custom “past memory of man” for
each ship arriving at the Orkneys to pay six angels and one dollar for
ground-leave and water-leave (_Reg. Privy Counc. Scot._, x. 247); and
the Dutch are said to have given to the agent of the Earl of Orkney a
barrel of salt for his “oversight” of each ship, and to have offered
the Earl for each ship “an angell and ane barrell of birskate (biscuit)
bread,” while he demanded “no less than ane double angell or ane Rose
noble at the least” (_MSS. Advoc. Lib._, 31. 2. 16).
[316] See p. 81. The treaty did not contain any stipulation of the
kind; and, moreover, the Scottish copy was then amissing.
[317] Muller, _Mare Clausum_, 107. _Brit. Mus. Add. MSS._, 17,677, J,
fol. 153 _et seq. Lansdowne MSS._, 142, fol. 410. _Reg. Privy Counc.
Scot._, xi. 605, 608.
[318] By the Scots Act, 1 James I., May 1424, regarding the “custome
of horse, nolt, scheepe, had furth of the realm, and of herring,” it
was ordained that the following should be paid: “of ilk thousand of
fresche herring sauld, of the Sellar one penny, and of ilk last of
herring, tane be Scottis-men barrelled, foure schillinges, of ilk last
be strangeris taken, sexe schillinges.”
[319] Caron to the States-General, 25 Aug./4 Sept., 12/22 Sept.,
19/29 Sept. 1616. _Brit. Mus. Add. MSS._, 17,677, J, fol. 152-166.
The statement of Lennox that the tax was a barrel of herrings or ten
shillings agrees with the statements of the Dutch skippers, who,
however, added twelve cod-fish (“Een tonne harinck van elcke bu sse oft
een Angelott daervooren met twelff cabillauwen”).
[320] Carleton, _Letters_, 156, 157. Muller, _op. cit._, 110. _Brit.
Mus. Add. MSS._, 17,677, J, fol. 213_b_. _Lansdowne MSS._, 142, fol.
410. _State Papers, Dom._ Collection, Charles II., vol. 339.
[321] Carleton, _Letters_, 156. Caron to the States-General, 3/13 Aug.
1617; Carleton to the States-General, 27 Aug./6 Sept. _Brit. Mus. Add.
MSS._, 17,677, J, fol. 210, 213. _State Papers, Dom._ Collection,
Charles II., vol. 339.
[322] Carleton, _Letters_, 168, 169, 172, 176, 186. Muller, _op. cit._,
111.
[323] _Brit. Mus. Lansdowne MSS._, 142, fol. 398, 400. “The State of
the Case between his Majesty and the States of the United Provinces,
touching the remanding to his Majesty of a Delinquent,” 19th November
1617. In Cæsar’s handwriting. It describes the circumstances of Brown’s
capture. The counsel whose opinion was obtained were “W. Byrde (? Sir
Wm. Bird, Dean of the Arches), H. Marten, and Hy. Styward.” “Brown,
his Majesty’s subject of the Kingdom of Scotland, was by authority
from that State sent in a pinnace of the King to the subjects of the
United Provinces, who were then fishing for herrings upon the coasts of
Scotland, to demand a certain acknowledgment claimed by his Majesty,
as due unto him in the right of that crown;” that “while delivering
his errand he was arrested and carried prisoner to Holland by the
Dutch commander, who pretended he had warrant and commission from the
Lords the States so to do; that his Majesty (having represented this
indignity by his ambassador there to the Lords the States, the latter
disavowed the act of the captain) requireth the offender there, to be
remanded unto himself here to receive as to justice shall appertain.
_The Question_--Whether this offender ought to be sent herein to
his Majesty as is required. _Answer_--There are good authorities
that if a subject of one State commit a heinous crime within the
territory of another State (though against a private person), the
subject so offending ought to be remitted to the place where the crime
was committed, if it be required.” There were also opinions to the
contrary, but “two very particular circumstances about this offence
seem necessarily to enforce the remission of the Dutch captain to his
Majesty (1) taken from the person of Brown, who was a public messenger
sent by the State of Scotland on the affairs of the Prince, and ought
to have been inviolable by the Law of Nations, and therefore a wrong
and abuse done to him was _contra jus gentium_; (2) taken from the
manner of the wrong done, which was _nomine publico_--viz., by a
pretended commission from the Lords the States.”
[324] Carleton, _Letters_, 219-263. Muller, _op. cit._, 113.
[325] Crail, Anstruther, and Pittenweem, in Fife, and Musselburgh and
Fisherrow, on the opposite side of the Firth of Forth.
[326] 12th March 1618. _Reg. Privy Counc. Scot._, xi. 329.
[327] Record imperfect.
[328] _Reg. Privy Counc. Scot._, xi. 328, 330.
[329] Carleton, _Letters_, 259.
[330] King James to Sir D. Carleton, 4th May 1618. “For the other
part, which is y^e ancient custom alleadged by O^r Subjects that they
(the Dutch) should not fish within Kenning of Land, of which they
make shew to be ignorant, and would understand what is meant by it:
you may say that O^r Subjects do conceave that Custom to be that no
strangers should fish either within the Creeks of O^r Land or within
a Kenning of the Land as Seamen do take a kenning, and insisting
upon this interpretation of O^r Subjects’ meaning, you shall observe
curiously their reply, and what scope and liberty they do limit to
themselves in their fishing, and whether they understand that they may
fish where they list, near or far off, or that they may be confined
to any reasonable bounds, for thereupon will depend a great part of
that resolution which may be taken hereafter in a matter of so great
moment as this is, and the answer you shall receive you may either
advertise by writing, or bring with you, as you shall find O^r service
to require.” _State Papers, Dom._ Collections, Chas. II., vol. 339.
In a later communication to the States-General Carleton described the
land-kenning thus: “Ce qui est une limite bien entendue par gens de
Marine, et appellée en ces quartiers là _The Kenning of the Land_, et
icy _de kennis vant landt_.” Dr P. P. C. Hoek informs me that “het land
verkennen” is even now the technical Dutch expression when a sailor
comes near the coast without knowing at what point he approaches it.
[331] Muller, _Mare Clausum_, 114.
[332] “Ane True Relatione of the Greifs and Wrangs qlks the Inhabitants
of the Isles of Orknay and Schetland and Others his Ma^{ties} Subjects
Fishars within ye Kingdome of Scotland sustains be the Hollanders
and Hamburghgers and wha within these few Zears are associat to the
Hollanders in the Fishing within his Ma^{ties} Seas in Scotland.” _MSS.
Advoc._, 31. 2. 16. It may be noted that the custom referred to in the
last paragraph was of Scandinavian origin.
[333] The Council to the king, 4th April 1618. _Melrose Papers_, i.
306, 307.
[334] 5th June 1618, _Groot Placaet-Boeck, inhoudende de Placaten
ende Ordonnantien van de H.M. Heeren Staten Generael der Vereenighde
Nederlanden, &c._, i. 707. In Fraser’s _Memorials of the Earls of
Haddington_ (ii. 66) there is printed the copy which King James sent to
Lord Binning. Sir Thomas Hamilton became Lord Binning in 1613, the Earl
of Melrose in 1619, and the Earl of Haddington in 1627.
[335] Answer by the States-General of the United Provinces to the
Propositions of the Ambassador of James VI. relative to the Herring
Fishery on the Coast of Scotland, 5th June 1618. Fraser, _Memorials_,
ii. 65. _Resol., St.-Gen._, 5th, 6th June. Muller, _op. cit._, 115.
[336] The king to Lord Binning, 11th June 1618. Fraser, _Memorials_,
ii. 85. Nothing seemed to be known of this treaty. James complained
that the States were not explicit. “This pointe” about the treaty, he
wrote, “they leave obscure, seeing they neyther expresse which of our
predecessouris it was, neyther whether he were our predecessour in
Scotlande or Englande.”
[337] Carleton to Naunton, 19th August 1618.
[338] The king to the Privy Council, 29th August 1618. _Reg. Privy
Counc. Scot._, xi. 440.
[339] P. 131.
[340] Hakluyt’s _Voyages_, i. 246.
[341] M’Pherson, _Annals of Commerce_, ii. 213.
[342] Muller, _op. cit._, 118. In a memorandum drawn up by Sir John
Coke in 1625, the Dutch are said to have first “intruded” in 1613.
_State Papers, Dom._, Chas. I., dxxii. 136. See also _Brit. Mus.
Lansdowne MSS._, 142, fol. 387 _et seq._
[343] Earl of Northampton to King James, August 2, 1612. _State Papers,
Dom._, lxx. 23.
[344] Chamberlain to Carleton, 27th October 1613. _Ibid._, lxxiv. 89.
M’Pherson, _Annals_, ii. 273.
[345] M’Pherson, _Annals_, ii. 274. Winwood, _Memorials_, iii. 480.
M’Pherson speaks of fifteen Dutch, French, and Biscay whalers and four
English “interlopers.” Muller (_Mare Clausum_, 120), quoting from a
contemporary Dutch account, mentions three Biscayers, three Spaniards,
two French, one Dunkirker, and two Hollanders. Both the Spanish and
French Governments protested against the action of the English vessels.
Digby wrote from Madrid (4th September 1613) that the English merchants
at St Sebastian were threatened in person and goods on the return of
the Spanish ships which had been prevented from fishing at “Greenland,”
and they were forced to remain indoors.
[346] A Trew Declaracion of the Discoverie of the mayne Landes,
Islandes, Seas, Ports, Havens, and Creekes, lyenge in the North-West,
North, and North-East partes of the World, _State Papers, Dom._, lxxvi.
51. Muller, _op. cit._, 121, 123. Carleton, _Letters_, 7.
[347] _Groot Placaet-Boeck_, i. 670. Aitzema, _Saken van Staet en
Oorlogh_, ii. 336. _State Papers, Dom._, xcix. 36.
[348] _Ibid._, xcix. 36-41. M’Pherson, _Annals_, ii. 287. Muller, _op.
cit._, 131.
[349] Carleton, _Letters_, 312.
[350] They were Johan van Goch, Ewout van der Dussen for Gelderland and
Holland, and Joachim Liens for Zealand. Holland had at first intended
to send Grotius. _Ibid._, 306.
[351] Among the Cæsar papers in the British Museum (_Lansd. MSS._, 142,
fol. 383) there is one dated 23rd December 1618, containing extracts
“noted out of a book called _Mare Liberum sive de Jure quod Batavia,
&c._, Lugd. Bat., 1609,” together with notes from Welwood’s _De Dominio
Maris_, answering the assertions in that book. It was doubtless a
memorandum to be used in the conferences with the Dutch ambassadors;
and on the back of it are scrawled jottings difficult to decipher,
headed, “The Kinges Speeche touching the Dutchemen’s fishing upon the
coasts of Great Britain and Ireland,” to the following effect: “1. The
treaty never so opportune as now when they fearest it most and their
State least settled; in ill terms with France and Spain. 2. In the East
Indies we can match them, and so in the north voyage (Greenland ?). The
French King taketh part with Barnevelt. The King of Spain prepareth
against Venice. What the King of Denmark, the Princes of the Union,
the ... and the rest of the Protestants think of any falling out with
the Low Countries.” It may be noted that this memorandum contains no
reference to Selden’s _Mare Clausum_, which the author stated was
submitted to the king this year (see p. 366).
[352] The king to the Council, 7th November 1618. _Reg. Privy Counc.
Scot._, xi. 631.
[353] _Reg. Privy Counc. Scot._, xi. 462.
[354] Lord Binning to the king, 27th November 1618. _Melrose Papers_,
ii. 631. The statement was to the same effect as that previously
referred to. A Mr Bruce of Shetland stated that while of old the
Hollanders used to carry on the greater part of their fishery forty
miles and more from the land, yet they came usually within fourteen
miles before shooting their nets; that in the time of the late Earl of
Orkney they came still nearer, within six or seven miles; while now
they came so close that their nets were sometimes torn on the rocks.
Sir Gideon Murray to Lord Binning, 26th November 1618. _MSS. Advoc._,
31. 2. 16.
[355] Earl of Dunfermline to Lord Binning, 27th November 1618. _MSS.
Ibid._ “Concerning the Hollanders fishing in our seas,” he said, “for
all the search and tryall I have made, whilk has been my uttermost, I
can wryte or send to you little more nor before, in effect nothing.”
The Constable of Dundee searched all his records, the records of the
Admiralty were explored, and all those in Edinburgh Castle and in the
city archives, as well as many in the keeping of private persons, and
every one likely to know anything about the matter was communicated
with; but “nothing to the purpose” was found, “nor no recorde of any
wryte made for the Hollanders’ use in 1594 or any other time.” The
“wryte” of 1594, it is to be remembered, was a long treaty made by
James himself. Copies were ultimately discovered of the treaties of
1531 and 1541, but nothing to the point. Copies of the treaty and of
other documents referring to it were obtained, apparently from Holland,
in 1619, and were ordered to be preserved in his Majesty’s Register
in Edinburgh Castle (_Reg. Privy Counc. Scot._, xii. 22); but in 1630
and 1631, when they were again wanted, they could not be found. _State
Papers, Dom._, Chas. I., ccvi. 46.
[356] This referred to the licenses to certain French boats to fish on
the Sowe in the Channel. See p. 65.
[357] “Zijne ma^t was een coninck van de grootste insulen van de werelt
ende seer wel wiste het rechte dat hij hadde opte custen van sijne drij
coninckrijcken.” Commissioners to States-General, (24 Dec. 1618)/(3
Jan. 1619). _Brit. Mus. Add. MSS._, 17,677, J, fol. 372.
[358] Note of Treatie with the Commissioners of the Estates annent the
Fishing. Dec. 1618. _MSS. Advoc._, 31. 2. 16.
[359] Naunton to Carleton, 21st December 1618.
[360] In apprehending Brown, p. 171. Grotius was then in prison, and
known to be the author of _Mare Liberum_.
[361] _State Papers, Dom._, xc. 65.
[362] The Dutch Commissioners to the States-General, (29 Nov.,)/(9
Dec.,) 17/27 Dec. 1618; (24 Dec. 1618,)/(3 Jan. 1619), 3/13 Jan., (23
Jan.)/(2 Feb.) 1619. _Brit. Mus. Add. MSS._, 17,677, J, fol. 364, 367,
370, 374, 380. Muller, _op. cit._, 140, 147, 148, 153. Aitzema, _Saken
van Staet_, ii. 402. Carleton, _Letters_, 326. _MSS. Advoc._, 31. 2.
16. _State Papers, Dom._ Collection, Chas. II., vol. 339, p. 351, 361,
369, &c.
[363] The Dutch Commissioners to the States-General, (30 Jan.)/(9 Feb.)
1619. _Ibid._, 387. Naunton to Carleton, 21st January 1619. Carleton,
_Letters_. Justice, _A General Treatise of the Dominion and Laws of the
Sea_, 179. The States were desired “to cause proclamation to be made,
prohibiting any of their subjects to fish within fourteen miles of
his Majesty’s coasts this year, or in any time hereafter, until order
be taken by commissioners to be authorised on both sides, for a final
settling of the main business.”
[364] P. 223.
[365] Carleton to the king, 6th February 1619.
[366] Muller, _op. cit._, 156. “So verre van ’t Lant souden blijven als
men met oogen konde afsien.”
[367] 2nd June 1619. Dumont, _Corps Diplomatique_, V. ii. 333.
[368] The English, who were the first to carry on the whale-fishing at
Spitzbergen, had taken possession of the best fishing-places: whales
then abounded in the bays close to the shore, where the “cookeries”
were erected.
[369] Muller, _op. cit._, 160. _State Papers, Dom._, cv. 9. The Muscovy
Company, now supported by the East India Company, fitted out nine ships
and two pinnaces for the Spitzbergen fishery in 1619, but the voyage
was unfortunate. After carrying on the fishing for a few years longer
the company abandoned it, though it was carried on on a small scale
by other English vessels, mostly from Hull. The Dutch, on the other
hand, prosecuted the fishing with great vigour and success under the
protection of men-of-war, and they rapidly made it one of the most
profitable industries of the Low Countries. A full account is given by
Zorgdrager, an old whaling captain, who wrote in the early part of the
eighteenth century (_Bloeijende opkomst der aloude en hedendaagsche
Groenlandsche Visscherij_). The Dutch factory on Amsterdam island grew
to a village called Smeerenburg or Oil-town, which was fortified in
1636. In those early years the whales were taken by the ships’ boats,
which lay moored in the bays; later, as the whales got scarce, they
were flensed at sea and the blubber carried home. This was the case
before F. Martens visited the island in 1671.
[370] The king to the Privy Council of Scotland, 16th June 1619. _Reg.
Privy Counc. Scot._, xi. 607.
[371] Since the records of the Scottish Council are silent as to the
steps taken to collect the assize-herrings in 1616 and 1617 and the
capture of John Brown in the latter year, while the Dutch and English
records are equally mute as to the proceedings in 1618 and 1619, it at
first appeared that a mistake might have been made in the dates of the
former, a view that seemed to be supported by the remark in the first
letter of the king to the Council, “to the intent that the Estaitis
may not alledge that no suche dewteis had bene demandit”--a curious
statement in face of the fact that Brown had been carried to Holland
the year before. But the late Professor Masson, who was the editor
of the _Register of the Privy Council_, obligingly informed me that
the documents are the original _Acta_ and not copies; and among the
English State Papers is a letter dated from Holyrood House, on 10th
July 1619, in which it is stated that Captain Murray had been sent to
claim the assize-herrings from the “Flemings” fishing in the northern
seas, and that he was well equipped to secure his safety if his demands
were refused (Raith to Abercromby, _State Papers, Dom._, cix. 127).
The phrase in the king’s letter may be explained by the fact that the
duty in 1616 and 1617 was demanded by the Duke of Lennox, to whom the
assize-herrings had been granted.
[372] _Reg. Privy Counc. Scot._, xi. 605, 608.
[373] See Appendix G. Fenton was one of those who were on intimate
terms with Ben Jonson during the poet’s visit to Scotland. _Reg. Privy
Counc. Scot._, xi. p. clxvii.
[374] _Op. cit._, 606.
[375] _Op. cit._, 593, 603.
[376] Footnote, p. 195.
[377] Carleton, _Letters_, 437, 447, 448, 451. Bosgoed, _Bib. Pisc._,
352. The sum voted in 1620 was 22,000 gulden; in the following years it
varied between 23,000 and 36,000 gulden.
[378] Muller, _op. cit._, 172, 173. Aitzema, _Saken van Staet_, i. 13,
17.
[379] Muller, _op. cit._, 174, 178.
[380] “Ghy sijt sangsues, bloetsuygers van mijn rijck, ghy treckt het
bloet van mijne Ondersaeten ende souckt mij te ruineren.”
[381] Muller, _op. cit._, 191, 194, 203. Aitzema, i. 191, 193.
Journal van de Ambassade van den Heere van Sommelsdyck naer Engelant,
1621-1623, _Brit. Mus. Add. MSS._, 22,866.
[382] 2/12 May 1620. Verboth van Haringh binnen de Klippen van
Yerlandt, Hitlandt, oft Noorwegen te vangen. _Groot Placaet-Boeck_, i.
752.
[383] 2/12 June 1623, _Groot Placaet-Boeck_, i. 708. Muller, _op.
cit._, 206.
[384] _Rec. Convent. Roy. Burghs_, iii. 142. _Reg. Privy Counc. Scot._,
xiii. 308, 317.
[385] George Lord Carew to the Secretary of State, Calvert, 8th March
1623. _State Papers, Dom._, cxxxix. 66. The Lord Mayor to Lords
Grandison, Carew, and Chichester, 27th March, 3rd April 1623. _Ibid._,
cxl. 47, cxlii. 21.
[386] A Project for the Encouragement of Fishing by passing an Act of
Parliament for Building fishing-vessels, to be protected by a Fleet
Royall of 20 ships, the expense to be defrayed by a Tribute of every
Tenth Fish. _Ibid._, clvii. 46.
[387] A Discourse of the Invention of Ships. _Collected Works_, viii.
326.
[388] Naval Tracts, in Churchill’s _Collection of Voyages_, iii. 220,
224.
[389] Cecil to Parry, 10th June 1603. _Foreign Papers, France_, vol.
129. It is endorsed “Souverainty of ye Seas, 1603. Monsr. de Vicque
beares ye armes of france in Dover road.” See also Sully, _Memoires des
Sages et royales Oeconomics d’Estat_, ii. 173, and Kermaingant, _Le
Droit des Gens Maritimes_, 3.
[390] Monson’s Naval Tracts, _ibid._, 222. The Spaniards to whom Monson
refers were no doubt the troops which Don Louis Fajardo had attempted
to carry to Flanders when he was attacked by the Dutch and took refuge
in Dover. Monson, it may be said, was in receipt of a secret pension of
£350 per annum from Spain. Gardiner, _Hist._, i. 215.
[391] Loccenius, _De Jure Maritimo et Navali_, 48.
[392] Thus in the Earl of Warwick’s voyage, in 1627, four vessels
“stood with their forefoot and very earnestly” tried to weather the
king’s ships off Falmouth, among them being a French man-of-war. The
English then shot at the latter, and “soo brought him by ye lee”
(_State Papers, Dom._, lxxix. 17). In 1637 Captain Straddling explained
how he compelled Dutch vessels to take in their flags, lower their
top-sails, and “lie by the lee” (_Ibid._, ccclxi. 41). In the historic
encounters with the Dutch in 1652 the same rule was shown. When Captain
Young met the Dutchmen on 12th May (see p. 402), their admiral came
under his lee and took down his flag, but their vice-admiral, “contrary
to navigation with us in the narrow seas, came to the windward of us”
(_French Occurrences, Brit. Mus._, E, 665, 6). So also when Blake met
Tromp, he “fired two shots thwart Tromp’s forefoot for him to strike
his flag and bear down to leeward, and he taking no notice of it, the
general ordered the third shot at Tromp’s flag, which went through his
main top-sails” (_Brit. Mus. Add. MSS._, 11,684, fol. 5_b_).
[393] The Lords of the Admiralty to Plumleigh. _State Papers, Dom._,
clvii. fol. 121.
[394] Meadows, _Observations concerning the Dominion and Sovereignty of
the Seas_, 2.
[395] _State Papers, Dom._, Chas. I. ccxxix. 79.
[396] 17th October 1632. _The Earl of Stirling’s Register of Royal
Letters_, ii. 627.
[397] _State Papers, Dom._, cxcix. 51.
[398] _State Papers, Dom._, cc. 5.
[399] _Ibid._, ccviii. 27.
[400] _State Papers, Dom._, dxxiii. 74, dxxix. 73. The proposal to
utilise the tenth herring for maintaining a navy had been long before
put forward by Dr Dee. See p. 101.
[401] The other half were exported as red-herrings.
[402] _State Papers, Dom._, 1629, clii. 57.
[403] Mason, who was intimately associated with the fishery scheme,
proposed that the island should be purchased by a company of
naturalised Scotsmen, and fishing stations established; and later he
recommended the purchase of the island by the king, leaving complete
freedom of fishery to all Scotsmen. Sir William Monson urged that a
“government” should be established in the island as well as in Orkney
and Shetland, and also a principal town; and that the children of the
islanders should be taught English, and “correspondence” between the
inhabitants and the Highlanders hindered, “considering the danger of
their too great friendship.” _State Papers, Dom._, 1629, clii. 66, 67,
68. The subject of the Earl of Seaforth’s lease and the fishings is
dealt with by Mackenzie, _History of the Outer Hebrides_, 290 _et seq._
[404] _State Papers, Dom._, clii. 63, 71; clxxx. 97. Dymes’ report is
printed in full by Mackenzie (_op. cit._, 591). The master of one of
the Dutch busses, who transported Dymes from Lewis to the mainland,
told him that the herrings were in such great abundance that they were
sometimes constrained to cast them into the sea again, they having more
in half their nets than they were able to save, “and he was of opinion
that if there had bene a thousand Busses more there was fish enough for
them all.”
[405] _Rec. Convent. Roy. Burghs Scot._, iii. 257, 259, 291. The
arguments against the Dutch were elaborated in a long document, which
concluded thus: “Lastly, theis Netherlanders greatnes, strength,
wealth, arts, and every happines doe originally proceede from their
fishing in his Majesty’s seas of England, Scotland, and Ireland.”
[406] P. 77.
[407] _State Papers, Dom._, clii. 63; clxv. 201; clxxx. 100. _Rec.
Conv. Roy. Burghs_, iii. 300 _et seq._
[408] _Acta Parl. Scot._, v. 220_b_. Captain John Mason, who was
afterwards appointed “Admiral” of the busses belonging to the society,
was apparently originally intended to lay the matter before the
Council. The draft, in Coke’s handwriting, is entitled, “Instructions
for Captain John Mason employed by his Majesty to treat with the Lordes
of the Privie Council of Scotland about the erection of a general
fishing,” and is among the _State Papers, Dom._, clxxx. 101.
[409] _Acta Parl. Scot._, v. 221. This ambitious scheme included the
building of 200 busses of from 30 to 50 tons each, “for a considerable
beginning,” besides the employment of the fishing vessels already
engaged on the coast which were of suitable size. These were computed
to number about 100 in Scotland and 200 in England (employed at
Newfoundland and the north seas), while at least 300 “coasters”
from Berwick to the Thames might also be made available; and it was
suggested that more might be built by the company “in every town,” or
bought from the Dutch. It was estimated that the cost of building and
equipping the 200 busses, including casks, salt, wages, &c., would be
£222,586, and that the total return the first year would amount to
£388,000, made up as follows: (1) summer herring fishing, 20,000 lasts
at £10, equal to £200,000; (2) winter herring fishing, 12,000 lasts at
£12, equal to £144,000; (3) cod and ling fishing in spring, 1,200,000
fish at £30 a thousand, and 600 tuns of oil at £13, 6s. 8d., equal to
£44,000. Several calculations were made about this time as to the cost
of equipping herring-busses, the profits to be derived from their use,
and the loss to the realm by the transport of cured fish by the Dutch;
Monson put the latter loss at £621,750 per annum. _State Papers, Dom._,
clii. 70, clxxx. 99, ccvi. 52; _MSS. Advoc. Lib._, 31. 2. 16; _Brit.
Mus. Sloane MSS._, 26. The latter is a “Discourse on the Hollanders’
Trade of Fishing,” by Sir Robert Mansel, of the usual type.
[410] _Acta Parl. Scot._, v. 225. The committee consisted of fifteen
peers, several bishops, and a large number of commoners. Mason, who
had accompanied Sir William Alexander to Scotland, reported to Coke
that the Council gathered in the Lord Chancellor’s chamber, “he lying
sick of the gout,” to hear the king’s letter read, and that Mr John Hay
“violently opposed” the scheme and attacked the Earl of Seaforth for
bringing in the Hollanders. _State Papers, Dom._, clxxii. 19.
[411] At this time the herring-fishing on the west coast of Scotland,
which began on 1st July and continued till Christmas, employed from
800 to 1500 fishing-boats of from 5 to 6 tons each, besides about
200 “cooper” boats of about 12 tons, which carried casks and salt
and brought back cured herrings to the burghs: about 6000 “seamen”
were employed in this industry. The herring-fishing on the east coast
was for the most part carried on at Dunbar--as many as 20,000 people
sometimes congregating there--and in the deep water where the Dutch
fished in July, August, and September. There was also an important
winter fishing for herrings in the Firth of Forth in November, and
at the North Isles from 1st October till Christmas. The “keeling” or
cod-fishing at the mouth of the Clyde in February, March, and April
employed about 120 of the largest boats; on the east coast this method
of fishing was carried on from 1st April till 24th June.
[412] _Acta Parl. Scot._, v. 226. _Rec. Conv. Roy. Burghs_, iii. 322,
323. The Earl of Seaforth, writing to the Earl of Carlisle on August
17th, said that the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Treasurer had left no
argument unuttered which might induce their countrymen, and especially
the burghs, to concur in the king’s desire about the fishing. The
burghs would not admit any association either with countrymen or
strangers; “they like not,” he said, “that noblemen or gentry should
understand matters of industry,” and they would do what they could to
move the king to delay. _State Papers, Dom._, clxxii. 78. In another
account of the proceedings of the Convention, it is said the burghs
claimed as “absolutely theirs” the fishing within bays and lochs, and
at sea for a distance of “two kennings” from the shore, and stated
that they would admit no partners, either natives or strangers; that
buss-fishing was distinguished by them to be “without two kennings from
the land”; and they would not “on any condition” allow any busses to
participate in the “land fishing” within two kennings, or to land at
all, but only to “make” their fish (cure them) on shipboard, as the
“Flemings” did. It is added that those who would have hazarded some
means in the project were “absolutely discouraged” by the attitude of
the burghs. _Ibid._, ccvi. 45.
[413] _Acta Parl. Scot._, iv. 369. _Statutes of the Realm_, 1 Jac. I.,
c. 2. _Reg. Privy Counc. Scot._, vi. _Nat. MSS. of Scot._, iii. No.
85. _State Papers, Dom._, 1604, x. No. 1. It is unfortunate that the
reasonable delimitation of the territorial fishing waters proposed in
the treaty was not carried out, for there can be little doubt that had
it been it would have become recognised by other nations, and would
have continued to the present day.
[414] _Acta Parl. Scot._, v. 228, 230. _The Earl of Stirling’s Register
of Royal Letters_, ii. 478.
[415] The commissioners were the Earl of Morton (Lord High Treasurer),
the Earl of Monteith (President of the Privy Council), the Marquis of
Hamilton, the Earls of Roxburgh and Carrick, Sir William Alexander, Mr
John Hay, and Mr George Fletcher.
[416] Among other things, the commissioners were instructed to
represent to the king the prejudice which Scotland sustained by the use
of the name “Great Britain” in the royal patents, writs, and records
relating to Scotland, for, they reminded him, “there was no union
as yet with England”; and Charles was to be requested to renew his
seals under the terms _Carolus Dei gratia Scotiæ, Angliæ, Franciæ, et
Hiberniæ Rex_. It must be remembered that at this time the Scottish
aristocracy were smarting under the defeat which the king had recently
inflicted on them in connection with the Act of Revocation, by which
most of the church, property in the hands of laymen was re-annexed to
the crown.
[417] _Acta Parl. Scot._, v. 232.
[418] _Rec. Conv. Roy. Burghs_, iii. 325. The foreigners from Hamburg
and Bremen were chiefly engaged in trade and barter.
[419] _Fœdera_, xix. 211. _State Papers, Dom._, clxxxvii. 46. The
commission was dated 8th December 1630, and the other commissioners
were the Earls of Salisbury, Dorset, and Carlisle, Viscounts Wimbledon
and Wentworth, Sir John Coke, Sir Francis Cottingham, and Sir William
Alexander, who was Secretary for Scotland.
[420] _Acta Parl. Scot._, v. 235. _Rec. Conv. Roy. Burghs_, iv. 526.
_State Papers, Dom._, clxxxviii. 72. In the record of the burghs
the distance from the shore on the east coast, at the Orkneys and
Shetlands, and on the north coast, is given as forty miles; but as the
original records of the Convention between 1631 and 1649 were lost, and
that printed is from an abstract prepared in 1700, it appears that an
error was made in the transcribing.
[421] The Duke of Lennox had some time before this proposed the
formation of a fishery society for the purpose.
[422] _Acta Parl. Scot._, v. 236. The Act referred to was passed in
1607 by the Scottish Parliament, but it was to be inoperative until a
corresponding Act was passed by the Parliament of England, which was
not done.
[423] _State Papers, Dom._, cxci. 7. Memorandum, dated 11th May 1631,
by Secretary Coke, on “Matters in difference betwixt the English
and Scottish Commissioners concerning the fishing.” From this paper
it appears that the Scottish commissioners made the most of points
relating to naturalisation; they objected to the natives being employed
as fishermen by the association, and they would say nothing about the
proportion of busses that might be set forth in Scotland.
[424] _Stirling Letters_, ii. 538, 544. _Acta Parl. Scot._, v. 236.
Charles, it will be observed, mentions 15 miles. The miles stated in
the Scottish documents were Scots miles of 5929·5 imperial feet, 10
Scots miles being equal to nearly 11¼ imperial miles; the extent of the
reserved waters was therefore very nearly 15¾ imperial miles (15·72).
[425] _Rec. Conv. Roy. Burghs_, iv. 534.
[426] _Acta Parl. Scot._, v. 238.
[427] _Rec. Conv. Roy. Burghs_, iv. 534, 535.
[428] “Whereat we ourselff for the most part were present,”--king to
Council, 15th July 1632. _Stirling Letters_, ii. 604.
[429] _State Papers, Dom._, ccvi. 46.
[430] _State Papers, Dom._, ccvi. 50.
[431] _State Papers, Dom._, cciii. 53, 54, 19th November 1631. The
draft appears to have been prepared and altered entirely by the king
himself.
[432] _State Papers, Dom._, ccxxix. 78, 83, 87, 89.
[433] The king to the Council, 15th July 1632. _Stirling Letters_, ii.
605, 606, 617. _Acta Parl. Scot._, v. 245.
[434] The Act specified by the king was passed in 1491, but he seems
rather to have been referring to the Act 6 James III., c. 48. “That
Lordes, Barrones and Burrowes gar make Schippes, Busches, and greate
Pinck-boates with Nettes,” which was passed in 1471, “for the common
good of the realm and the great increase of riches,” to be brought from
other countries in exchange for fish exported. The Act of James IV.,
“Anent the makeing of Schippes and Busches on the quhilk all Idle Men
suld Laboure,” was an early attempt to carry out the policy advocated
by English writers in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
centuries. It enacted that ships and busses, not under twenty tons
burden, should be built in all the burghs and towns of Scotland,
provided with mariners and nets: and power was given to compel “idle
men” to man them.
[435] _State Papers, Dom._, ccvi. 47. “What is required from the Lords
and Gentry of Scotland towards the fishing.”
[436] _Acta Parl. Scot._, v. 236.
[437] _State Papers, Dom._, ccxxi. 1 ; _Acta Parl. Scot._, v. 239.
[438] The councillors nominated by Charles were, for England and
Ireland, Lord Weston, the High Treasurer (created Earl of Portland
in February of the following year), the Earl of Arundel, the Earl
of Pembroke, Viscount Savage, Lord Cottingham, and Secretary Coke;
for Scotland, the Earl of Morton, the High Treasurer, the Earl of
Stratherne and Monteith, President of the Privy Council, the Earl of
Roxburgh, Viscount Stirling, Mr John Hay, and Mr George Fletcher.
[439] Martin, who visited the Hebrides about the year 1695, saw the
foundation of a house, which, the natives told him, had been built by
the Society as a store for salt and casks, on Hermetra, a small island
in the Sound of Harris; and he saw a similar relic on a small island
called Vacksay, in Loch Maddy. He was informed by the natives that “in
the memory of some yet alive,” as many as 400 sail had been loaded
with herrings in Loch Maddy in one season: at the time of his visit
the fishing had been abandoned, though herrings were plentiful. _A
Description of the Westerne Islands of Scotland_, pp. 51, 54, 55.
[440] Simon Smith, who was latterly Secretary to Pembroke’s
association, afterwards stated that the Society had attained to the
proper cure of herrings, and was likely to have been ultimately
successful. This opinion was not shared by Dutch writers. The author of
_The True Interest and Political Maxims of the Republic of Holland_,
published under the name of De Witt, says the herrings the Society
sent to Dantzic in 1637 and 1638, though caught at the same time and
place as the Hollanders’ herrings, were “esteemed naught to the very
last barrel”; and a contemporary author, Meynert Semeyns, a skipper of
Enkhuisen, in a work written in 1639 (_Een corte beschryvinge over de
Haring-visscherye in Hollandt_), says the same thing. “The Dutch,” he
boasted, “catch more herrings and prepare them better than any other
nation ever will; and the Lord has, by means of the herring, made
Holland an exchange and staple-market for the whole of Europe.” No
other nation, he added, ever tried the industry but to their loss, and
the example adduced was the Society’s herrings sent to Dantzic.
[441] In August and September 1633, before the Council had met (busses
having been purchased on the strength of subscriptions promised),
two busses were taken by Dutch men-of-war and one by a Dunkirker.
The former captures were doubtless made because the Dutch fishermen
were acting contrary to the fishery laws of the United Provinces in
taking service with aliens, and they were promptly disavowed by the
States-General and the busses restored. The Dunkirkers made prize of
some of the busses (there were ten or twelve of them) almost every
year: one, the _Salisbury_, was taken twice, and in 1639 four were
captured. Spain was then at war with the United Provinces, and the
Dutch buss was a natural prey of the Dunkirk privateer.
[442] P. 309.
[443] _State Papers, Dom._, ccccxxix. 48. Order of the King in
Council, 29th September 1639. “Taking into consideration of what great
importance it is and may be to the good of this kingdom to plant,
increase and cherish the fishery in the North seas, and understanding
that the Dutch, who reap an annual great benefit thereby, have and
do not only privately underhand, but too manifestly also oppose the
endeavours of his Majesty’s good subjects, who have of late years
employed their industry that way,” it was ordered that the Lord
Treasurer, the Earl Marshal, the Lord Admiral, the Lord Chamberlain,
the Earl of Dorset, and one of the Secretaries of State, calling to
their aid Sir Henry Marten (Judge of the Court of Admiralty), should
forthwith “consult and advise what fitting course may be taken to
advance and settle the said fishery, and particularly to consider
whether it may not be fit to debar the exportation of lampreys, without
which the Dutch cannot well, as is informed, continue their fishing
for cod and ling, until his Majesty’s subjects be quietly settled
in the herring fishing.” The Dutch obtained their lampreys for bait
almost exclusively from England, and chiefly from the Thames. The
above account of the proceedings of the Fishery Society is summarised
(for the most part) from numerous State Papers. It was stated by Simon
Smith, who was latterly Secretary to Pembroke’s association, that
£10,000 was lost through the Dunkirkers.
[444] Oppenheim, _A History of the Administration of the Royal Navy_,
i. 215, 217, 221.
[445] _Ibid._; Hannay, _A Short History of the Royal Navy_.
[446] Oppenheim, _op. cit._, 265.
[447] Oppenheim, _op. cit._, 275.
[448] _State Papers, Dom._, lvi. 66; lxi. 81; lxx. 8, 9; liv. 56; xc.
70, 119; clxii. 82, 45.
[449] _State Papers, Dom._, lix. 79; xci. 30, 45; xcii. 62; xciii. 82;
xcv. 39; clxiii. 65; clxxx. 94. In 1630 a Yarmouth fisherman, owner
of one of the Iceland smacks under convoy, petitioned the Council for
relief from the payment of the twenty shillings, on the grounds that
before the Order was made he had paid £5 for the assurance of his boat
during that season to the assurance office in London, and that three
boats belonging to him had been previously taken by Dunkirkers.
[450] Oppenheim, _op. cit._, 276.
[451] _State Papers, Dom._, cclxviii. 31, 88 ; cclxiv. fol. 20_a_;
ccxciii. 107; ccxciv. 46.
[452] _State Papers, Dom._, ccxciii. 107; ccxciv. 46; ccxcv. 31, 69,
71; cclxiv. fol. 164. Many of the crew of the man-of-war were English,
Scottish, or Irish. It was probably owing in part to the considerable
numbers of British subjects serving on the Dutch men-of-war that they
were always favoured by the country people.
[453] _Ibid._, ccxcvi. 5, 14, 30. Joachimi to States-General, (26
Aug.)/(4 Sept.), _Brit. Mus. Add. MSS._, 17,677, O, fol. 380.
[454] _Brit. Mus. Add. MSS._, 30,221, fol. 43_b_.
[455] Reglement for Preventing Abuses in and about the Narrow Seas and
Ports, March 1633. _State Papers, Dom._, cclx. 127, 128; cclxxix. 18.
_Brit. Mus. Add. MSS._, 30,221, fol. 44 (Pepys’ collections). Copies
exist in _State Papers, Dom._, vol. 515, Nos. 38, 39 (1647), extracted
from _Admiralty Book_, Liber E, and in _State Papers, Dom._, Jas. I.,
vol. 11, No. 40 (1604), wrongly calendered (see p. 119).
[456] _Ibid._, liv. 9, 33.
[457] Oppenheim, _op. cit._
[458] _State Papers, Dom._, lxxxvi. 73, 75; ccxxix. 102.
[459] Gardiner, _Hist._, vii. 349 _et seq._
[460] Gardiner, _op. cit._, 368.
[461] _State Papers, Dom._, cclxxxvii. 55; ccxci. 14.
[462] _Ibid._, cclxxvi. 65.
[463] Rushworth, _Collections_, ii. 257. _State Papers, Dom._, cclxxvi.
64. Compare the language of Edward III. in 1336, p. 36.
[464] Rushworth, ii. 294, 353. Compare Windebank’s notes of the speech,
_State Papers, Dom._, ccxc. 108: “The Judges at the Assizes to let the
people know his Majesty’s care to preserve the ancient dominion (of the
seas).”
[465] Gardiner, _op. cit._
[466] _State Papers, Dom._, cclxix. 51.
[467] _Resol. States-General_, 9/19 Nov. 1633; Muller, _Mare Clausum:
Bijdrage tot de Geschicdenis der Rivaliteit van Engeland en Nederland
in de Zeventiende Eeuw_, 229.
[468] _State Papers, Dom._, ccxxxiv. 87; Nicholas’s _Letter Book_, Feb.
16, fol. 97. Muller thinks it was this revival of feeling about the
dominion of the sea that caused the edition of Grotius’ _Mare Liberum_
to be published this year, with the Magnus Intercursus appended.
[469] Coke to Boswell, 16/26 April 1635. Needham, _Additional Evidences
concerning the Right of Soveraigntie and Dominion of England in the
Sea_; Justice, _A General Treatise of the Dominion and Laws of the
Sea_, 181; Entick, _A New Naval History_, xvii. If, as is probable, the
mention of discourses concerning _Mare Clausum_ referred to Selden’s
work, it would show that the author was then known to be engaged in
writing it.
[470] “Dessein de Sa Ma^{te} de la grande Bretagne p̄ sa flotte
p̅r̅e̅nte,” 15/25 May 1635. Aitzema, _Saken van Staet en Oorlogh_, ii.
164; Muller, _op. cit._, 230. Boswell suppressed the reference to the
Dutch fisheries and to the old troubles at Greenland and in the East
Indies, and he toned down the part prohibiting the warships of other
nations from keeping guard in the British seas.
[471] _State Papers, Dom._, cclxxxvi. 100.
[472] They were as follow: _Merhonour_, admiral, 44 guns; _James_,
vice-admiral, 48 guns; _Swiftsure_, rear-admiral, 42 guns; _St
George_, 42 guns; _St Andrew_, 42 guns; _Henrietta Maria_, 42 guns;
_Vanguard_, 40 guns; _Rainbow_, 40 guns; _Red Lion_, 38 guns; _Constant
Reformation_, 42 guns; _Antelope_, 34 guns; _Leopard_, 34 guns;
_Swallow_, 34 guns; _Mary Rose_, 26 guns; _Bonaventure_, 34 guns; and
the First, Third, Eighth, and Tenth _Lion’s Whelps_, of 14 guns each.
The merchant ships were the _Sampson_, _Freeman_, _Royal Exchange_,
_William Thomas_, and _Pleiades_.
[473] The king to the Earl of Lindsey, _State Papers, Dom._,
cclxxxviii. 84.
[474] Instructions for our very good Lord, the Earle of Lindsey,
Admirall of his Majesties’ fflete, in his Majesty’s shippe the
_Merhonour_, prepared for this present Expedic̃on for Guard of the
Narrow Seas. 2nd May 1635. _State Papers, Dom._, clvii. fol. 135_b et
seq._
[475] _Ibid._, cxcii. 3, 21st May 1631; clvii. fol. 117_b_. It was
found that the French had a fleet of thirty-nine men-of-war, and two
additional ships were building. _Ibid._, cxcviii. 84.
[476] 20th May 1631. _Ibid._, cxci. 80.
[477] _State Papers, Dom._, ccxxxvii. 1.
[478] _Ibid._, clvii. fol. 132, 26th April 1634.
[479] In the memorandum which Pennington submitted to the Admiralty, he
said: “Sixtly, that if any stranger bee oprest by another stranger y^t
is stronger than hee, within the jurisdicion of ye Narrow Seas, and y^t
hee flyes for succor or refuge to any of his Majesty’s shippes imployed
for the guard of the sayd Seas, and come under his lee, and craves
protection, whether his Majesty’s ffloatinge ffortes shall not have
ye same privelege in succoringe and defendinge them as ffortes a Land
hath.” _Ibid._, cclxv. 23.
[480] Windebank and Cottington were two of the three in the confidence
of the king as to the secret negotiations with Spain. _State Papers,
Dom._, cclxv. 23, 25, 26, 41, 49, 78, 89; clvii. fol. 132.
[481] An equally obscure answer of Coke’s is recorded in the collection
of papers for the ambassadors to Cologne in 1673 (_State Papers, Dom._,
Chas. II., vol. 339, p. 513). “1636. Ea Leicester (_sic_) Query--What
answer shall I give if I be asked what I mean by the seas of ye King
my master, or our seas? The Answer returned by Mr Secretary Coke in
his own hand: By the King’s or our seas you are not to understand or
condescend to any restrictive sense but to answer ye Brittish Seas:
and that the 4 seas mentioned in our laws are thereby meant, which you
must not otherwise circumscribe or limitt; besides they are the same
which in all antiquity have been acknowledged to belong unto us, as is
sufficiently proved by authentic records.”
[482] _State Papers, Dom._, cclxxxviii. 84, 85.
[483] _State Papers, Dom._, cclxxxviii. 4; cclxxxix. 75. He had “no
more than two blue and two white flags with six pendants to each of
them; there are wanting two red flags and six pendants, one blue flag
and one white.” The office of Lord High Admiral was in commission from
the death of the Duke of Buckingham in 1628 until the appointment of
the Earl of Northumberland in 1638.
[484] Gardiner, _Hist._, vii. 385.
[485] The inhabitants of the coast were apprehensive of the French
fleet, and the Admiral sent a message to the Mayor offering to show his
orders from the King of France, which bound him to honour and respect
everything that belonged to his Majesty of Great Britain. _State
Papers, Dom._, ccxci. 23.
[486] _State Papers, Dom._, ccxci. 58, 59.
[487] Gardiner, _op. cit._, 385; _State Papers, Dom._, ccxcv. 61.
The English agent in France reported in August that two squadrons
under French admirals, and bearing the French flag, were to ply, one
along the coast of France from Belle Isle to Bayonne, the other at
the mouth of the Channel. The remainder of the fleet, half French and
half Hollander (which guarded the coast up to Calais and to the north
of it), bore the States’ colours, and were under the command of the
Hollander Admiral,--“an expedient to avoid acknowledging his Majesty’s
right in the Channel, in case this squadron should meet his Majesty’s
fleet and be constrained to vail the bonnet.”
[488] Gardiner, _loc. cit._
[489] It was from this Hollander, met off Beachy Head on 9th June, that
Lindsey learned that the French fleet was at Portland.
[490] _State Papers, Dom._, ccxci. 80, 27th June 1635.
[491] _Ibid._, ccxcvi. 14.
[492] _State Papers, Dom._, ccxciii. 12.
[493] Gardiner, _op. cit._, 386.
[494] Lindsey to the king, 2nd August; Coke to Lindsey, 4th August.
_State Papers, Dom._, ccxcv. 9, 42. The rumour that two of the king’s
ships were to go north to the busses reached the ears of the States’
ambassador. _Brit. Mus. Add. MSS._, 17,677, O, fol. 376.
[495] _State Papers, Dom._, ccxcvi. 5, 14, 16, 30. _Brit. Mus. Add.
MSS._, 17,677, O, fol. 380. _Res. Holl._, 7th September, Bosgoed, _op.
cit._, p. 358. Twelve busses and three of the convoys took refuge at
Newcastle; others in the Firth of Forth. The skipper of a coasting
vessel from Scotland to Scarborough saw seven busses in flames; the
sky was red from the conflagration. The _Leopard_, one of Lindsey’s
fleet, convoying merchantmen to Dunkirk, met eighteen of the privateers
returning in triumph. The Dutch busses were the natural prey of the
Dunkirkers, and the States were put to great expense and pains in
guarding them. In 1625 a Spanish agent, Egidio Ouwers, submitted to
Cardinal de Ceva, at Brussels, an elaborate plan for destroying the
Dutch herring fishery, so as to “spoil their chiefest mine by which
they maintained their wars.” _State Papers, Dom._, dxxi. 30.
[496] _State Papers, Dom._, ccxcv. 44.
[497] The facts as to the movements, &c., of the fleet are mostly taken
from the Earl of Lindsey’s Journal, written for the king’s information,
and preserved in the Record Office. “A Relation of the passages that
daily happened in this late expedition under my conduct, being by Your
Majesty’s gratious appointment Admiral and General of your Majesty’s
ffleet sett forthe for guard of your Narrow Seas, from the time that
the ships mett all together in the Downes, 28^o May, untill the 8^o of
October following, I making my first entrance aboard yo^r Royall ship
the _Merhonor_, 16^o May, in Tilbury Hope.” _Ibid._, ccxcix. 28.
[498] Pennington to Nicholas, 3rd August 1635. _State Papers, Dom._,
ccxcv. 18. Pennington, it may be said, lost no chance of sneering
privately at the Earl of Lindsey, especially in his correspondence with
his friend, Nicholas, the Secretary to the Admiralty. When Lindsey
finally reached the Downs in October, and Pennington was appointed
to command the winter fleet, he told Nicholas that he had hoped that
“they” who had had the “sweet of the summer should have had a little
of the sour sauce of the winter”; he had spent “twice as much as he,
and more every way for the king’s honour.” Nicholas shared the feeling.
On hearing that Lindsey had appointed a French cook on board the
_Henrietta Maria_ he refused to believe it, “as it was never since his
time known that any Frenchman was admitted scarce to go aboard, much
less to be an officer in any of the king’s ships”; and he foretold
great evils from it. _Ibid._, ccxcix. 19; ccxci. 61.
[499] Gardiner, _op. cit._
[500] _Brit. Mus. Add. MSS._, 17,677, O, fol. 364.
[501] _State Papers, Dom._, cclxxviii. 3. Roe’s reference was to the
fishings at the Zowe or Sowe, where great numbers of gurnards were
caught (see p. 65). The stipulation of Richelieu concerned the allied
squadrons which were to blockade Dunkirk, as arranged by Article viii.
of the treaty. Article xii., after providing for the size of the
squadrons, continues, “Et au cas que lesdites esquadres viennent à
s’assembler, comme il peut arriver qu’il sera necessaire pour le bien
commun, l’Admiral desdits Seigneurs les Estats abaissera à l’abord son
pavillon du grand mast, et le saluëra de son canon, et celui du Roi le
resaluëre comme de coustume, et comme il en a esté use par le Roi de la
Grande Bretagne.” Dumont, _Corps Diplomatique_, 83 (?).
[502] _State Papers, Dom._, lxxix. 17. “Athwart ye opening of Falmouth
four sailes stood with their forefoot,” and very earnestly tried to
weather the English ships. Among them was a French man-of-war of
Rochelle, but they shot four or five pieces of ordnance at him, and
“soo brought him by ye lee.” See p. 207.
[503] He reported, 16th September 1631, that two English merchantmen
had met five French men-of-war, bearing the French king’s colours on
the main-top, and the Malta colours on the poop, who saluted them with,
“Amain, rogues, for the King of France”; but as the English ships
refused to strike and prepared to fight, the French sheered off. He
added that he had learned, through an interview between one of his
lieutenants and one of the French commanders, that the latter had a
commission to compel any English ships he could master to take in their
flags and dowse their top-sails, and that three French admirals had
been appointed for regaining the regality of the Narrow Seas, because,
as the French officer said, the Pope had taken it from France and given
it to England, but now that we had fallen from their religion it had
been reassigned. _State Papers, Dom._, cxcix. 51.
[504] Nicholas to Pennington, 29th September 1631. _Ibid._, cc. 45.
[505] Pennington to Nicholas, 2nd October (_ibid._, cci. 7).
Pennington, whose information about the French trying to make the
English strike had given the Admiralty and the king “good content”
(_ibid._, cc. 27), had been ordered westwards to retaliate, but “he
hoped the Lords would not think that his two ships half-manned were
able to encounter with twenty well manned”. _Ibid._, cci. 29.
[506] 14th October, 12th November 1631. _State Papers, Dom._, cci. 54;
cciii. 32.
[507] _Ibid._, cclxiii. 75.
[508] _Ibid._, cccxvii. 102.
[509] _State Papers, Dom._, cclxv. 23, 25, 41, 49.
[510] _Ibid._, cccxvii. 102.
[511] _State Papers, Dom._, cci. 59; ccii. 17; ccciii. 71, 79; ccx. 58;
ccxxxiv. 37; ccxlviii. 81.
[512] _State Papers, Dom._, ccxx. 25, 26.
[513] _Ibid._, ccxxxiv. 5, 32. “The Ambassador and the other Lords
being at dinner in the great cabin, the gunner sent word that a
Hollander was passing with his top-sails a-trip, to whom he gave
order to make a shot. The Lords and gentlemen left the table to see
the event, but the Hollander, neither for that shot nor two or three
others, would lower the same one foot; whereupon he gave order to shoot
him through, which was done, with as much speed as they could bring
ordnance to bear, so as before she passed she had twenty shot in and
through her sides, which they heard to crash in the same. They could
perceive but one piece she had forth; to that fire was given twice. The
shot came not near, but they might well hear the same. After her came
the Admiral with his flag on the main-top.” Ketelby cleared for action
and was giving orders for a broadside; but the ambassador twice desired
him to give over and stand for Dover, and he submitted. If it had not
been for his passengers, Ketelby did not doubt he would have brought
them in to answer the contempt.
[514] _State Papers, Dom._, ccxcv. 13; ccxcvii. 28; ccxcviii. 16. It
was the usual practice to make the offender pay for the shot.
[515] _State Papers, Dom._, ccc. 43; ccci. 28; ccxcix. 21.
[516] _Ibid._, cclxv. 49.
[517] Ketelby and Viscount Conway explained that it was necessary to
punish them in a public manner, since imprisonment in the bilboes
and such corporal punishments were not effective. Conway recommended
Scott’s fine to be remitted, owing to his worth and poverty, as well as
from the fact that he had recently been taken captive by the “Turkish”
pirates, and his ransom was not all paid. Bushell, as we learn from a
petition “of divers poor men, women, and children, whose kindred are
now in slavery at Argier and Sallee,” had redeemed and brought home
thirty of the captives; and it is probable that neither of the fines
was exacted. It is doubtful if Lindsey’s action was regular, for the
vessels, according to his statement, had not come within gunshot.
The _Neptune_ was one of the three ships fitted out by London for
Northumberland’s fleet. _State Papers, Dom._, ccxv. 28, 65, 67; cclxv.
50; cclxiii. 75; ccxcvi. 30, 34, 37; ccci. 31.
[518] Molloy, _De Jure Maritimo et Navalis_, 149.
[519] _Regulations and Instructions relating to his Majesty’s Service
at Sea_, 1734, 1766, 1790, Art. xi.; 1808, Art. xxiv. A case of the
kind occurred in 1829. Phillimore, _Commentaries upon International
Law_, ii. 58.
[520] Gardiner, _op. cit._, viii. 84.
[521] _State Papers, Dom._, ccxcvi. 69; cci. 26, 97.
[522] _State Papers, Dom._, ccciii. 74; cccv. 36, 38; cccxi. 1. The
total number of men in the first fleet, which included five of the
“Whelps” and two pinnaces then building, was to be 4580; in the second,
in which were included two “Whelps,” it was to be 1890.
[523] Hume (_Hist. Engl._, ch. lii. an. 1636), following earlier
writers, places the number at sixty. Thus Frankland (_Annals of King
James and King Charles the First_, 477 (1681)) speaks of “sixty gallant
ships.” Baker (_A Chronicle of the Kings of England_, 455 (1679))
and others, including most of the naval historians of the eighteenth
century, give the same number.
[524] Northumberland’s Journal, _State Papers, Dom._, cccxliii.
72. Pennington, on hearing of the appointment of the Earl of
Northumberland, wrote in February 1636 to the Council expressing his
satisfaction; verily believed he would carry himself like a general in
all respects, unless led away, “as the last was, by such as neither
knew the honour of the place nor the way of managing the service for
the honour and safety of the kingdom.”
[525] _State Papers, Dom._, ccxcviii. 63.
[526] The Lords of the Admiralty to the king, 24th February 1636.
_State Papers, Dom._, cccxiii. 24, 25. The documents are in Windebank’s
writing; the first is endorsed “Fishing. Waftage. An excellent Piece.”
See Appendix I.
[527] “Instructions for our very good Lord, the Earle of
Northumberland, Admirall of his Majesty’s fflete in his Majesty’s ship
the _Triumph_, prepared for this present Expedic̃ion for guard of his
Majesty’s Seas.” _State Papers, Dom._, clvii. fol. 141.
[528] Gardiner, viii. 157. The English ships were “clogged with
timber,” which, however, served them well in the first Dutch war when
they were pitted against the slighter-built ships of the States.
(Oppenheim, _op. cit._, 254.)
[529] _State Papers, Dom._, clvii. fol. 141_b_; ccxiv. 107. The Earl of
Northumberland to the Lords of the Admiralty, cccxxi. 44, 45, 65, 78,
87; cccxxii. 16, 40; cccxxv. 78, 79; cccxxvi. 16, 38; cccxxvii. 42, 73.
The Lords of the Admiralty to Northumberland, 14th June, cccxxvi. 32.
[530] Rowland Woodward to Francis Windebank, 16th December 1630. _State
Papers, Dom._, clxxvii. 13. The writer said he “much feared the event
if it should be put in execution.”
[531] _Ibid._, cclxxix. 67.
[532] Petition of the Governor, Assistants, and Fellowship of the
Merchant Adventurers of England to the Council. _Ibid._, cclxxxix. 91.
[533] _Ibid._, cclxxxv. 84.
[534] _State Papers, Dom._, cccviii. 48; cccxx. 14.
[535] A Proclamation for Restraint of Fishing upon His Maiesties Seas
and Coasts without License. _State Papers, Dom._, cccxx. 62. _Fœdera_,
xx. 15.
[536] The form annexed to the Earl of Northumberland’s instructions,
sent to him on 14th June from Hampton Court, and which he received at
Plymouth on the 22nd, is as follows:--
“CHARLES R.
“We are gratiously pleased by these Presents to grant Lycense to ... to
fish with the Men and Company belonging to a Ship or Vessel called the
... being of the Burthen of ... Tonnes, upon any of Our Coasts or Seas
of Great Brittaine and Ireland, and the rest of our Islands adjacent,
where usually heretofore any fishing hath been. And this Our Lycense to
continue for one whole Year from ye Date hereof: Willing and requiring
as well all Our subjects as others of what Nation, quality or condition
soever that they give no Impeachment or molestation to ye said ... or
his company in the said Vessell in the Execution of this Our Lycense,
upon such Paines and Punishments, as are to be inflicted upon the
Violators of Our Royall Protection, and the wilful Breakers of Our
Peace, in Our aforesaid Dominions and Jurisdictions, further requiring
and Commanding all Our Admiralls, Vice-Admiralls, Rere-Admiralls and
Captaines of Our Ships, Castles, and Forts to protect and assist the
said ... in ye quiet enjoying the benefit of this Our Lycense.”
Another form, dated in July, was as follows:--
“Charles by the Grace of God King of Great Brittaine, France
and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. To all his Admiralls,
Vice-Admiralls, Rere-Admiralls, and Captaines of oure Shippes, Castles
and fforts, and to all and every other our Officers, Ministers and
subjects to whome it shall apperteyne, Greeting. Whereas Wee are
gratiously pleased by these presents to grant License to ... Master of
a Busse or Vessell called the ... beinge of the burthen of ... Tonnes,
To fishe with the Men and Company belonging to the said Busse or
Vessell upon anie of our Coastes and Seas of Great Brittaine, Ireland
and the rest of our Islands adiacent where usually fishing hath bene,
from the date hereof, to the last of December next. These are to will
and require as well Yow our said Officers and Subjects, as others of
what Nacion, quality, or condition soever That yow not onely give noe
impeachment or molestacion to the said ... or his Company in the said
Vessell in the Execucion of this Our License, upon such paynes and
punishments, as are to be inflicted upon the Violaters of oure Royall
Protecion and the wilfull Breakers of our Peace in oure aforesaid
dominions and jurisdictions: But that yow protect and assist the said
... and his Company in the quiet enioying the benefitt of this oure
License during the time before limitted: Given ...” _Ibid._, cccxxvi.
32; cccxxix. 77, 78, 79. It appears from copies without the names and
particulars filled in, which are preserved at The Hague, that the first
form was used in July, a certain Joost Bouwensz of Delfshaven having
accepted one on the 24th (N.S.) of that month.
[537] _State Papers, Dom._, cccxix. 81; cccxxii. 40; cccxxvi. 32;
cccxvii. 93; cccxxviii. 11, 41, 69.
[538] The herring-busses in ordinary course fished all night in fleets,
with their drift-nets floating in the water; during the day the crews
were employed in curing and packing the herrings caught.
[539] “Next day wee fetched in 4 more of them, and having caused their
busses to be manned with English, and threatened the takeing away
their nettes, they at last consented to take Licenses, and paying
the acknowledgment I sent them all away very well satisfied.” These
busses belonged to the Enkhuisen herring fleet, which was convoyed by
a warship under Captain Gerrit Claesz. Ruyter, to whom Northumberland,
after the licenses had been accepted, gave a written certificate and
safe-conduct for bringing in the busses. Muller, _Mare Clausum_, 269,
377.
[540] These were the Delfshaven busses, the skipper of one being Joust
Bouwensz, previously referred to. According to the Dutch accounts,
money was scarce on the busses, but the English very willingly took
herrings instead, a barrel of herrings being reckoned at from four to
four and a-half florins.
[541] These were the _Victory_, _Repulse_, and _Swallow_. From a report
of the Officers of the Navy to the Admiralty, on 20th August, we learn
that the _Repulse_ had a great many sick on board--“some three or four
having died within these two days; some thirty sick were landed at
Margate and eight are ill on board. The surgeon is dead, as is said
of the spotted fever, full of spots, and it is much doubted that the
pestilence is amongst them.” The plague in this and the following year
made great ravages in London and at the naval ports, partly from the
want of simple precautions--_e.g._, in this case the sick men were
to be discharged “for fear of infection (of the ship) and to cease a
needlesse charge.” _State Papers, Dom._, cccxxx. 61.
[542] The account of the movements of Northumberland’s fleet is
extracted from his “Journall of oure Summer’s Voyage in the yeare
1636.” _State Papers, Dom._, cccxliii. 72.
[543] Northumberland to Windebank, 16th August 1636 (from Scarborough).
_State Papers, Dom._, cccxxx. 41. About 400 licenses in all, each
signed by the king, had been furnished to the Earl.
[544] 20th Dec. 1628. “Clachten van de insolentien van’t bootsvolk en
de visschers deser landen in Schotlandt.” Muller, _op. cit._, 232.
[545] The English Company and the king’s relation to it were considered
by the States in January 1631, 25th Oct. 1632, 19th Nov. 1633, and 15th
Sept. 1634. (Bosgoed, _Bib. Pisc._, 357. Oprichting eener Engelsche
compagnie voor de Haring-visscherij, Muller, _op. cit._, 235.)
[546] _Verbaal van Beveren_, 1636-37. Muller, _op. cit._, 246.
[547] _Brit. Mus. Add. MSS._, 17,677, P, fol. 67 _et seq._
[548] Van Beveren to the States-General, 15/25 Aug. _MSS. Add._,
17,677, P, fol. 88. In his letter he says the tax on each ton was
“twee sixpenningen,” or an English shilling. Others placed it at two
shillings a last.
[549] Aitzema, _Saken van Staet en Oorlogh_, ii. 409. Muller, _op.
cit._, 263.
[550] Joachimi to the States-General, (31 Aug.)/(10 Sept.), 9/19 Sept.
1636. _Brit. Mus. Add. MSS._, 17,677, P, fol. 99, 100. _Verbael van
Joachimi_, 1636. Muller, _op. cit._, 264.
[551] Elizabeth to Sir Thomas Roe, 15/25 Aug. 1636. _State Papers,
Dom._, cccxxx. 38.
[552] Roe to Elizabeth, 19th Aug., 20th Sept. _Ibid._, cccxxx. 50;
cccxxxii. 1.
[553] Northumberland to the Admiralty and to Secretary Coke, Sept. 16.
_State Papers, Dom._, cccxxxi. 55, 56.
[554] _State Papers, Dom._, cccxxxii. 39.
[555] Northumberland’s Journal, _Ibid._, cccxliii. 72; Northumberland
to Nicholas, 6th October 1636. _Ibid._, cccxxxiii. 26. Dutch accounts
vary somewhat from that given by the Earl of Northumberland. According
to them, seven English men-of-war fell in with a hundred busses
convoyed by five States’ warships, and the busses paid the tax and took
the licenses. But when thirteen Dutch men-of-war, convoying a great
herring fleet, arrived on the scene and put themselves in a position
for battle, the English ships did not interfere any further and soon
sheered off.
[556] An Accompt of the Convoy money, as it was delivered unto me by
the Captaines emploied in that Service, vizt.: Captain Carteret, £657,
Captaine Lindsey, £200, Captain Slingsby, £42, Captain Johnson, £20, Mr
Skinner, £80.
[557] An Account of the Acknowledgment Money taken of the Holland
Fishermen. The partiality for English gold is shown by the fact that
£119, 13s. of the total was thus paid.
[558] The Dutch themselves appear to have acknowledged a payment
of 20,000 florins (Muller, _Mare Clausum_, 274). Rapin (_Hist.
d’Angleterre_, vii. 455) and Wagenaar (_Vaderlandsche Historie_, xi.
260) placed it at 30,000 florins; Larrey (_Hist. d’Angleterre, d’Ecosse
et d’Irlande_, iv. 126) states that the Dutch concluded a treaty with
Charles by which they agreed to pay him “dix mille ecus par an,”
which is equivalent to the same thing; Hume (_Hist. of England_, ch.
lii. an. 1636) says: “The Dutch were content to pay £30,000 for a
license during this year.” The error is found in the earlier English
historical writers. Rushworth (_Collections_, V. ii. 322) also states
the sum as £30,000, and adds that the Dutch were willing to pay a
yearly tribute for a like liberty in future. Frankland (_Annals
of King James and King Charles the First_, 477 (1681)) says that
Northumberland with his “sixty gallant ships” “commanded the Dutch
busses to cease fishing until they had obtained permission from the
King, which they seeming not willing and ready to do, he fired amongst
them, sunk some and seized others, until they were forced to fly into
his Majesty’s harbours, and desired the Lord Admiral to mediate to
his Majesty for his leave for this summer, and they would pay unto
his Majesty’s treasury therefor the sum of £30,000, which they did
accordingly, and professed their readiness to become suppliants to his
Majesty for a grant, under the condition of a yearly payment therefor
for the future.” This writer seems to have confused Northumberland’s
operations with those of Blake’s fleet in 1652 (see p. 406) or with
the onslaught of the Dunkirkers in 1635. Kennet (_A Complete Hist.
of England_, iii. 85 (1719)) repeats the mistake and puts the sum at
£30,000, and so with almost all the historians, as well as the naval
writers. Thus, Burchett (_A Complete Hist. of the Most Remarkable
Transactions at Sea_, 379 (1720)) and Lediard (_The Naval History of
England_, 526 (1735)) give the statement of Frankland; Entick (_A New
Naval History_, 438 (1757)) drops one of the ciphers and makes the
sum £3000, but otherwise retains the false account. Admiral Colomb,
in his recent excellent work on _Naval Warfare_ (p. 33), no doubt
founding on these naval authors, also refers to the “non-payment of the
£30,000 annually, which had been fixed by Charles as license dues.” The
writers of minor books embellished the error. In a mendacious treatise
published in 1664 (_The Dutch drawn to the Life_, 146) it is said that
Northumberland “scoured the seas of the Dutch busses, seizing some,
sinking others, and enforcing the rest to flee; so reducing all to the
precarious condition of entreating the favour of fishing by the King’s
commission, which he was the readier to indulge them, because he looked
upon them as the most likely instruments for his nephew’s restauration
to the Palatinate.” John Smith, writing in 1670 (_England’s Improvement
Reviv’d_, 257), said that “the composition of the Hollanders (for
liberty to fish) was an annual rent of £100,000, and £100,000 in hand;
and never having been paid or brought into the Exchequer, as I could
hear of, there is an arrearages of above £2,500,000; an acceptable
sum,” he adds, “and which would come very happily for the present
occasions of his Majesty”--Charles II. would have been very glad of
much less; he quite failed to induce the Dutch to pay him £12,000
a-year for a like liberty. Evelyn in 1674 (_Navigation and Commerce_)
put the “arrears” at over half a million sterling, and he said that in
1636 the Hollanders paid £1500, 15s. 2d. for licenses; but this was
only, as he explained later, “the sophism of a mercenary pen,” since
he slumped the convoy and the “acknowledgment” money together (having
had access to Northumberland’s Journal), and eight years later he wrote
to Pepys his remarkable letter of recantation, in which he stated,
“Nor did I find that any rent (whereoff in my 108 page I calculate the
arrears) for permission to fish was ever fixed by both parties” (_Diary
and Correspondence_, iii.)
The writers on international law have copied the erroneous statements
from the historians and from one another. Wharton (_Hist. of the Law
of Nations_, 154) says, “The exclusive rights to the fisheries within
these seas (the Four Seas) and near the coasts of the British Islands
had been occasionally acknowledged by the Dutch in the form of annual
payments and taking out licenses to fish; and was again suspended by
treaties between the sovereigns of England and the Princes of the House
of Burgundy.” This statement, which outrages chronology as well as
fact, is repeated (without acknowledgment) by Phillimore (_Commentaries
upon International Law_, I., Part ii., c. vi. s. clxxxiv.), and by
Travers Twiss (_The Law of Nations in Time of Peace_, 254), Hall
(_Treatise on International Law_, 145), and others. Hall quotes Hume’s
statement that the Dutch had to pay £30,000 for leave to remain, and a
more recent author supposes that the great fishing of the Dutch on our
coasts originated in the reign of Elizabeth, and that, growing strong,
they refused to pay the “duties levied without question for generations
within the British Seas” (Walker, _A History of the Law of Nations_, i.
167). As has been shown in the text, the Dutch herring-boats resisted
the payment of the “acknowledgment” money as far as they could; the
States-General equipped a fleet to prevent by force their molestation
by the English men-of-war, and they dismissed their Admiral because he
failed in 1636 to protect them.
[559] Aitzema, _op. cit._, ii. 408. “Op de bewaringhe ende
bescherminghe van de groote ende kleyne Visscherij deser Landen tegen
de Spaansche ende allen anderen die hun souden willen beschadigen,”
August 5/15, 1636.
[560] _State Papers, Dom._, cccxxxiii. 13.
[561] Muller, _op. cit._, 273.
[562] _Res. Holl._, 19th September; _Res. St.-Gen._, 8th November 1636;
Bosgoed, _Bib. Pisc._, 360.
[563] Gardiner, _Hist. England_, viii. 160, 163, 202, 205.
[564] Roe to Ferentz, Oct. 15, 1636. _State Papers, Dom._, cccxxxiv.
15. Goring to his father, Lord Goring, Feb. 4/14, 1637. _Ibid._,
cccxlvi. 33. Goffe to Archbishop Laud, Feb. 2. _Ibid._, cccxlvi. 23.
The Queen of Bohemia to Archbishop Laud, Feb. 4/14. _Ibid._, cccxlvi.
34. Laud to the Queen, Feb. 28. _Ibid._, cccxlviii. 62. Roe to the
Queen, Mar. 17. _Ibid._, cccl. 16. The Queen to Laud, (Mar. 25)/(April
4). _Ibid._, cccli. 1. Goffe’s letter to Laud was as follows: “Your
Grace will receive intelligence from other hands that certain edicts
which were ready to be published by the States against paying any
acknowledgment for leave to fish are now suppressed upon the hopes of
his Majesty’s relinquishing that business for the present. But the
Prince of Orange, not willing to content himself with probabilities,
hath been very pressing with the Queen of Bohemia to have some
assurance given him that the king would not interrupt their fishing
this year. And if no other way might be afforded, he is very urgent at
least that the Elector (the son of Elizabeth) would write to him and
assure him so much. How much such an assurance would be prejudicial
to the honour of his sacred Majesty your Grace can best judge. But I
thought it my duty to add that though their edicts are suppressed,
yet their book in answer to Mr Selden’s _Mare Clausum_ is ready to
come forth: and the author is neither so modest nor discreet that the
Elector should trust him [? the Prince of Orange] with any written
assurance in that kind. The Prince of Orange hath been so much upon
this that it hath given others cause to believe that the Elector will
be moved in it.”
[565] Roe to Ferentz. _State Papers, Dom._, cccxxxiv. 15.
[566] The “confident vrundt” was probably Roe, who was the confidential
adviser of Elizabeth, and at this time had interviews with the Dutch
ambassador in the Prince’s interests, which he “feared would come to
nothing.” _Ibid._
[567] “Que durant le même temps les Pescheurs et preneurs d’hareng,
subjects de leurs Seigneuries, pescheront librement et franchement,
com̄e ils out tousiours faict du temps de la Royne Elysabeth et du
grand Roy Jacques tous deux de très-glorieuse mémoire, s’approchants
si près des bords de mer, et rivages des royaulmes, terres et ysles de
sa Ma^{té}, que leur mestier, la course de poisson et hareng, et leur
proffit portera, voire jusques à seicher leurs filets sur terre, sans
que sa Ma^{té} directement ou indirectement leur fera ou fera faire
aucun dommage, destourbier, ou empeschement en cela.” _Verbaal van
Beveren._ Muller, _op. cit._, 279.
[568] Gardiner, _op. cit._, 218. _State Papers, Holland_, Jan., Feb.
1637.
[569] March 19, 1637. _State Papers, Dom._, cccl. 34.
[570] Gardiner, _op. cit. State Papers, Holland, Flanders._
[571] Windebank to Northumberland, July 3. _State Papers, Dom._,
ccclxiii. 21.
[572] _State Papers, Dom._, clvii. 151_b_.
[573] Windebank to the Earl of Northumberland, 3rd July 1637. _State
Papers, Dom._, ccclxiii. 21.
[574] Northumberland to Windebank, 4th July, _Ibid._, ccclxiii. 28.
[575] Windebank to Northumberland, 6th July. _Ibid._, ccclxiii. 41.
[576] “Diamentenring van tamelijcke groote,” _Verbaal van Beveren_.
Muller, _op. cit._, 297.
[577] _State Papers, Dom._, cccliv. 16; ccclv. 22.
[578] Report of Fielding, 24th July. _Ibid._, ccclxiv. 45.
[579] Pennington to Nicholas, 10th July, _State Papers, Dom._,
ccclxiii. 99; Northumberland to Sir Thomas Roe, 6th August, _ibid._,
ccclxv. 28; Pennington to Northumberland, 20th May, _ibid._, ccclvii.
15, ii.
[580] Windebank to Fogg, Aug. 10. _Ibid._, ccclxv. 51. With reference
to this letter of Windebank’s, the following note by Secretary
Williamson was made on the copy in the volume prepared for the
ambassadors going to Cologne in 1673 (_State Papers, Dom._, Chas.
II., 339, p. 519): “This mentioned report appears by other letters
and passages of that time to have been really the truth, but of that
disadvantage to his Ma^{tys} right and title, as it was thought fitt
by all means to stiffle it, and give out Captain Fielding went to ye
Holland Busses onely w^{th} notice of ye Dunquerq^{rs} preparations to
intercept them in their return and to offer his Ma^{ties} protection.”
[581] Windebank to Northumberland, 1st Aug., _State Papers, Dom._,
Chas. I., ccclxv. 5; Roe to Countess of Northumberland, 20th July,
_ibid._, ccclxiv. 22; Northumberland to Windebank, 1st Sept., _ibid._,
ccclxviii. 1; Same to Admiralty, 6th Sept., _ibid._, ccclxviii. 43.
[582] Aug. 10. _Ibid._, ccclxv. 53. The king’s real feelings were shown
in the instructions given to the Earl when he was ordered to the west
on 1st August. “If any of the fishers of Holland which have refused his
Majesty’s licenses shall be assaulted by the Dunkirkers, his Majesty
will in no wise that you protect them.” _Ibid._, ccclxv. 5.
[583] Aug. 6. _State Papers, Dom._, ccclxv. 28.
[584] An example of the feeling is to be found in an incident of this
summer. One, Richard Rose, a justice of the peace, on hearing that the
fleet was going forth to maintain the king’s title of being Lord of the
Narrow Seas, exclaimed: “What a foolery is this; that the country in
general shall be thus much taxed with great sums to maintain the king’s
titles and honours! For my part, I am £10 the worse for it already.”
When information of this remark was laid before the Council, the Lords
“thought it not fit to question these words.” _Ibid._, ccclxx. 1.
[585] The king to the Twelve Judges, 2nd Feb. 1637. _Ibid._, ccclxvi.
11.
[586] The _Sovereign of the Seas_ was the largest ship hitherto built
for the navy; it was 127 feet long in the keel, 46½ feet in breadth
(inside measurement), and 19 feet 4 inches in depth; the tonnage was
by the “new rule” 1552 tons, by the “old rule” 1823 tons. She was also
by far the most expensive. Her cost was £40,833, 8s. 1½d., besides
her guns, which were estimated to cost, with engraving, £25,059, 8s.
8d. _State Papers, Dom._, ccclxi. 71; ccclxix. 44; ccclxxiv. 30;
ccclxxxvii. 87. See also Oppenheim, _Hist. Administration Royal Navy_,
260. In 1637 a “description” of the ship was published by Thomas
Heywood, dedicated to the king, and with a frontispiece representation
of it: “_A True description of his Majestie’s Royall Ship Built this
yeare 1637 at Wool-witch in Kent. To the great glory of our English
Nation and not paraleld in the whole Christian World._ Published by
Authoritie, London, 1637.” The description, apart from the verse,
occupies a few pages at the end, the work dealing chiefly with the
ships of the ancients. A second edition was published in 1638: “_A True
Discription of his Majestie’s royall and most stately ship called the
Soveraign of the Seas, built at Wol-witch in Kent 1637 with the names
of all the prime officers in her_,” &c. Prynne (_Brief Animadversions_,
&c., p. 123) says that Charles claimed and maintained the dominion of
the seas by increasing the navy, &c., and “by giving the name of the
_Edgar_ (with this motto engraven on it, _Ego ab Edgaro quatuor maria
vendico_) and of the _Soveraign of the Sea_ to the Admiral of his
fleet.”
[587] _State Papers, Dom._, ccclxxx. 61; ccclxxxix. 86; cccxc. 39.
[588] _State Papers, Dom._, cccxxv. 21; cccxxxviii. 15; cccxli. 6;
ccclxi. 41; cccliii. fol. 34. _Brit. Mus. Add. MSS._, 17,677, O, fol.
364.
[589] _State Papers, Dom._, ccclxxxii. 44; ccclxxxiii. 29.
[590] Smith to Pennington, 8th June 1639. _Ibid._, ccccxxiii. 56.
[591] Windebank to Pennington, 10th, 15th, 16th July, _State Papers,
Dom._, ccccxxv. 45, 72, 81; Northumberland to Pennington, _ibid._,
ccccxxv. 76; Windebank to Hopton, 16th August, _Clarendon State
Papers_, i. 1283.
[592] Pennington to Windebank, 13th July. _State Papers, Dom._,
ccccxxv. 61, 68.
[593] Gardiner, _Hist._, ix. 69; _State Papers, Dom._, ccccxxviii. 52.
[594] Northumberland to Pennington, 12th September, _State Papers,
Dom._, ccccxxviii. 92; Windebank to Hopton, 29th September, _Clarendon
State Papers_, ii. 71; Hopton to Windebank, October 12/22, _Cal. Clar.
State Papers_, i. 1311.
[595] Gardiner, _op. cit._, 61.
[596] Windebank to Colonel Gage and Count Leslie, (28 Sept.)/(8 Oct.).
_Cal. Clar. State Papers_, i. 1296.
[597] Gardiner, _op. cit._, 63.
[598] Smith to Pennington, 30th Sept. _State Papers, Dom._, ccccxxix.
70.
[599] Northumberland to Pennington, 16th September. _Ibid._,
ccccxxviii. 92.
[600] Pennington to the Master of the _Luke_, of London, 23rd Sept.
_Ibid._, ccccxxix. 15.
[601] Smith to Pennington, 19th Sept. _State Papers, Dom._, ccccxxviii.
111.
[602] “De Spaansche Vloot te vernielen sonder eenige aanschouw of
reguard te nemen op de Havenen, Reeden, of Baayen van de Coningryken,
waar de zelve zoude zyn te bekomen.” _Resol. Stat.-Gen._, 11/21,
20/30 Sept. 1639. Aitzema, _Saken van Staet en Oorlogh_. Bynkershoek,
_Quæstiones Juris Publici_, lib. i.
[603] Northumberland to Pennington, 8th Oct., _State Papers, Dom._,
ccccxxx. 47; Same to Windebank. 9th Oct., _ibid._, ccccxxx. 55;
Pennington to Northumberland, 11th Oct., _ibid._, 77; Suffolk to
Windebank, 11th Oct., _ibid._, 66, 68; Pennington’s report, 11th
Oct., _ibid._, 74; Hopton to Windebank, 20/30 Nov., _Cal. Clar. State
Papers_, i. 1323; Tromp to Pennington, 11/21 Oct., _State Papers,
Dom._, _ibid._, 80 (translation in Windebank’s writing); _ibid._,
ccccxxxi. 4.
[604] Leslie to Windebank, 11th Oct.; Gage to Windebank, 19/29 Oct.
_Cal. Clar. State Papers_, i. 1309, 1313.
[605] Northumberland to Pennington, 15th Oct. _State Papers, Dom._,
ccccxxxi. 18, 30; _Cal. Clar. State Papers_, i. 1324.
[606] Windebank to Gerbier, 18th Oct. _State Papers, Dom._, ccccxxxi.
35. Gage to Windebank, 9/19 Nov. Paper delivered by Hopton to King of
Spain, 24th Nov. _Cal. Clar. State Papers_, i. 1321, 1324.
[607] _State Papers, Dom._, dxxxviii. 106. The paper is endorsed
“Soverainty of the Seas: the Dutch attempt on the Spaniards in the
Downs.”
[608] _Resol. St.-Gen._, 16/26, 20/30 Oct., (26 Oct.)/(5 Nov.) 1639.
Instructie van Sommelsdijck, Muller, _Mare Clausum_, 309; Aitzema,
_Saken van Staet_, ii. 618.
[609] _Secrete Resol. St.-Gen._, 11/21 Oct., “Dat hunne meeninge
gantsch niet was, het recht van Visscherie in de Noortzee van ijemant
te stipuleren, versoecken ofte reveleren.” Muller, _op. cit._, 312. In
the following year Vice-Admiral De With refused to lower his flag to an
English ship-of-war off Hellevoetsluis.
[610] Maine, _International Law_, 13, 75. Phillimore, _Commentaries
upon International Law_, I. xxi. Wheaton, _History of the Law of
Nations_, 54.
[611] Meadows, _Observations_, p. 3. Raleigh, _A Discourse on the
Invention of Ships_.
[612] Cunningham, _The Growth of English Industry and Commerce during
the Early and Middle Ages_, p. 418.
[613] _Le Droit International_, i. 20.
[614] _De Potestate Legis Pœnalis_, lib. ii. c. 14. Quoted by Nys,
_Les Origines du Droit International_, p. 382, and by Grotius, _Mare
Liberum_, c. vii.
[615] D. Fernandus Vasquius, _Controversiæ Illustres_, Venice, 1564,
lib. ii. c. lxxxix. s. 30 (p. 356, ed. Frankfurt, 1668).
[616] _Mare Libervm sive de Jvre qvod Batavis competit ad Indicana
Commercia Dissertatio._ Lugdvni Batauorvm. Ex officinâ Ludovici
Elzevirij Anno 1609. The name of Grotius did not appear on the
title-page until the second edition in 1618 (_Hvgonis Groti Mare
Libervm sive_ ... vltima editio. Lvgdvni Batavorum, anno 1618), the
year in which he was arrested; and that he was not generally known to
be the author until this time is shown by Welwood referring to _Mare
Liberum_ in 1613 as written by “an unknown author,” and by an English
State Paper, prepared for the negotiations with the Dutch ambassadors
in 1618, which contains excerpts out of a book called _Mare Liberum_
(_Brit. Mus. MSS. Lansd._, 142, fol. 383). Grotius was then one of the
most prominent men in Holland. Another edition was published, also at
Leyden, in 1633, together with Paul Merula’s _Dissertatio de Maribus_
and Boxhorn’s _Apologia pro Navigationibus Hollandorum adversus Pontem
Hevtervm_, under the title, Hugo Grotius, _De Mare Libero_. It was also
included in Hagemeier’s _De Imperio Maris, variorum Dissertationes_,
published in 1663. A translation in the vernacular appeared at Haarlem
in 1636,--no doubt in consequence of the publication of Selden’s _Mare
Clausum_,--H. Groti, _Vrye Zeevaert, ofte Bewys van het Recht dat
de Inghesetenen deser gheunieerde Landen toekomt over de Oost ende
West-Indische Koophandel_. Hugo de Groot was born at Delft in 1583; he
was appointed Advocate-General before he was twenty-four years of age,
and settled at Rotterdam in 1613, where he became Pensionary of that
town; he was sent to England as one of the Dutch envoys in that year.
In 1618 he was arrested in connection with the Barnevelt troubles,
and in the following year condemned to perpetual imprisonment; but he
escaped to Paris, where he lived for eleven years, and then entering
the service of the Queen of Sweden, he was employed as her ambassador
at the Court of France. He died at Rostock in 1645. Some of his works
were translated into almost all European languages, and even into
Persian, Greek, and Arabic.
[617] Tiele, _Opkomst van het Nederlandsch Gezag in Oost-Indie_; Fruin,
_Een onuitgegeven werk van Hugo de Groot_, in _De Gids_, Derde ser.
zesde Jaargang, 1868, vierde del; M’Pherson, _Annals of Commerce_, ii.
209, 226.
[618] “Ante annos aliquot, cum viderem ingentis esse momenti ad
patriæ securitatem Indiæ quæ Orientalis dicitur commercium, id vero
commercium satis appareret obsistentibus per vim atque insidias
Lusitanis sine armis retineri non posse, operam dedi ut ad tuenda
fortiter quæ tam feliciter cœpissent nostrorum animos inflammarem,
proposita ob oculos causæ ipsius iustitia et æquitate, unde nasci το
ἑυελπι recte a ueteribus traditum existimabam. Igitur et universa belli
prædæque iura, et historiam eorum quæ Lusitani in nostros sæue atque
crudeliter perpetrassent, multaque alia ad hoc argumentum pertinentia
eram persecutus amplo satis commentario, quem edere hactenus
supersedi.” _Hugonis Grotii Defensio Capitis quinti Maris liberi
oppugnati a Gulielmo Welwodo Iuris Civilis professore capite XXVII.
eius libri scripti Anglico sermone cui titulum fecit Compendium legum
Maritimaram._ This manuscript of Grotius was discovered in 1864, along
with the work _De Jure Prædæ_, to which he refers, in a collection of
MSS. brought to auction, which belonged to the family of Cornets de
Groot of Bergen-op-Zoom, who had descended in a direct line from the
great publicist (Fruin, _op. cit._) It was printed by Muller in 1872
(_Mare Clausum_, p. 331). The greater work, edited by Hamaker, was
published in 1868, _Hugo Grotius de Jure Prædæ Commentarius_.
[619] “Hujus generis est Aër, duplici ratione, tum quia occupari
non potest, tum quia usum promiscuum hominibus debet. Et eisdem de
causis commune est omnium Maris Elementum, infinitum scilicet ita, ut
possideri non queat, et omnium usibus accommodatum: sive navigationem
respicimus, sive etiam piscaturum.” Cap. v.
[620] Cap. v. “Similiter reditus qui in piscationes maritimas
constituti Regalium numero censenter, non rem, hoc est mare, aut
piscationem, sed personas non obligant. Quare subditi, in quos legem
ferendi potestas Reipublicæ aut Principi ex consensu competit, ad onera
ista compelli forte poterunt: sed exteris jus piscandi ubique immune
esse debet, ne servitus imponatur mari quod servire non potest.... Quod
in aliis difficile videtur, in hac omnino fieri non potest: quod in
aliis iniquum judicamus, in hac summe barbarum est, atque inhumanum....
In tanto mari si quis usu promiscuo solum sibi imperium et ditionem
exciperet, tamen immodicæ dominationis affectator haberetur: si quis
piscatu arceret alios, insanæ cupiditatis notam non effugeret.”
[621] Not improbably James had _Mare Liberum_ in view in the following
sentence in his Proclamation of 1609: “Finding that our connivance
therein hath not only given occasion of over great encroachment
upon our regalities, or rather questioning for our right.” That it
was believed in England that Grotius had James in view is shown by
the following _précis_ contained in the volume of official records
prepared for the ambassadors to the Congress at Cologne in 1673: “K.
James coming in, the Dutch put out _Mare Liberum_, made as if aimed
at mortifying the Spaniards’ usurpation in the W. and E. Indyes, but
indeed at England. K. James resents it, bids his Amb^r S^r D. Carleton
complaine of it.” _State Papers, Dom._, cccxxxix. p. 99. Chas. II.,
1673-75.
[622] Cap. v. p. 29. “In hoc autem Oceano non de sinu aut fretu, nec
de omni quidem eo quod e littore conspici potest controversia est.
Vindicant sibi Lusitani quicquid duos Orbes interjacet.”
[623] Cap. vii.
[624] Hvgonis Grotii De Ivre Belli ac Pacis, Libri Tres.
[625] Lib. ii. cap. ii. s. iii. 1, 2.
[626] Lib. ii. cap. iii. s. viii. “Ad hoc exemplum videtur et mare
occupari potuisse ab eo qui terras ad latus utrumque possideat, etiamsi
aut supra pateat ut sinus, aut supra et infra ut fretum, dummodo non
ita magna sit pars maris ut non cum terris comparata portio earum
videri possit. Et quod uni populo aut Regi licet, idem licere videtur
et duobus aut tribus, si pariter mare intersitum occupare voluerint,
nam sic flumina quæ duos populos interluunt ab utroque occupata sunt,
ac deinde divisa.”
[627] Lib. ii. cap. iii. ss. ix.-xii.
[628] Lib. ii. cap. iii. s. xiii. 2. “Videtur autem imperium in maris
portionem eadem ratione acquiri qua imperia alia, id est, ut supra
diximus, ratione personarum et ratione territorii. Ratione personarum,
ut si classis, qui maritimus est exercitus, aliquo in loco maris
se habeat: ratione territorii, quatenus ex terra cogi possunt qui
in proxima maris parte versantur, nec minus quam si in ipsa terra
reperirentur.”
[629] Calvo, _Le Droit Internat._, i. 348; Ortolan, _Règles
Internationales et Diplomatie de la Mer_, i. c. v. See p. 156 referring
to a State Paper of 1610, which seems to be misdated “August 1609.”
[630] Dumont, _Corps Diplomatique_, vol. V. ii. p. 99. The treaty was
signed on (30 March)/(9 April) 1609.
[631] _Defensio_, 332 (_circa_ 1614); Letter to his brother, 1st April
1617. _Epistolæ_, 759.
[632] _De Justo Imperio Lusitanorum Asiatico adversus Grotii Mare
Liberum._
[633] _Ivlii Pacii De Dominio Maris Hadriatici Disceptatio_, Lvgdvni
M.D.C.XIX. Other works were Angelus Mattheacius, _De Jure Venetorum et
Jurisdictione Maris Adriatici_, Venezia, 1617; Cornelio Francipane,
_Alegazion in Jure, per il Dominio, della Republica Veneta, del suo
Golfo, contra alcune Scritture di Napolitani_, 1618; Franciscus
de Ingenuis, _Epistola de Jurisdictione Venetæ Reipublicæ in Mare
Adriaticum_, 1619; P. Zambono, _Del Dominio del Mare Adriatico overo
Golfo di Venezia_, Venice, 1620.
[634] M’Crie, _Life of Andrew Melville_, 206, &c. Selden describes him
as _Jurisconsultus Scotus_; and Prynne “A Scot, Professor of the Civil
Law” (_Animadversions_, 113).